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Book._ . M a ^_ 

Gopght'N?.- 



COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT. 



A STUDY FOR THE TIMES 

CLELAND BOYD McAFEE 

FORTY-FIRST STREET PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH, CHICAGO 



S> 



1903 

THE WINONA PUBLISHING COMPANY 

CHICAGO, ILLINOIS WINONA LAKE, INDIANA 




- 

7cf*¥ 



COPYRIGHT, 1903, 

BY 

THE WINONA PUBLISHING CO. 






N^» 






I WOULD DEDICATE THIS LITTLE BOOK TO 
MY WIFE, DID I NOT REALIZE THAT IT IS HERS 
ALREADY BY NO WORD OF MINE, IF THE CHIEF 
INSPIRATION AND THE MOST HELPFUL SUG- 
GESTIONS CAN CONSTITUTE A CLAIM, 



TEbe adapters 

I. — A Typical Growing Church. 
II. — The Divine Element in Church Growth. 
III. — The Preaching of the Growing Church. 
IV. — The Separation of the Church. 
V. — The Discomfiture of Hypocrites. 
VI. — The Changed Lives of the Converts 
VII.— Some Hints of Method. 
VIII. — The Perils and Safeguards. 



Zhe <5rowino Cbutcb 



I. A TYPICAL GROWING CHURCH. 

NOT long ago I found myself in the city of 
Philadelphia, with an hour to spare before 
my train was due. I wandered again into old 
Independence Hall, and presently found myself 
in the upstairs room where was framed the first 
constitution of the United States. There I 
noticed the high backed chair with its quaint 
carving, of which John Fiske tells in one of his 
volumes. This is the incident: After the critical Per- 
momentous act of signing the new constitution od * Ch ' v 
which was to be presented to the country for 
adoption, the room grew very still. The men 
who had spent months in thought and debate, 
knew that their task was done and were 
weighted with the meaning of it. Washington 
sat with bowed head, his face buried in his 
hands. On the back of his chair, in which he 
had presided over the many sessions of the con- 
vention, was emblazoned a half sun, brilliant 
with gilded rays. Benjamin Franklin, then 
eighty-one years of age, pointed to the emblem 
and said, "As I have been sitting here all these 
weeks, I have often wondered whether yonder 

1 



XEbe ©rowing Cburcb 



sun was rising or setting. Now I know that it 
is a rising sun." 
church ain- Franklin's question conies into the mind of 
ingornot? many men who are thoughtfully observing the 
signs of our own times. The sun is not in the 
zenith. It is yonder just above the horizon. 
But are we facing the east and a rising sun, or 
the west and a setting sun ? Is the church of 
God making real headway, is it winning, is it 
facing better daylight ? Or is it still slumber- 
ing, is it losing ground in the contest, is it 
going into deeper night before it comes to the 
noon day ? Is it in the dusk or in the dawn ? 
Two eminent religious leaders and observers 
have recently taken opposite ground on the 
question. One sees an advancing kingdom; the 
other sees a kingdom making no large headway. 
One believes we are coming to the noonday; 
the other expects the noonday as well, but 
believes we are now passing into a shadow 
which will deepen before we come into the 
light. One sees a church aroused and at work; 
the other sees a church slumbering still and 
indifferent in its work. 

When such men differ, the rest of us have a 
right to ask questions. It is well for us to ask 

2 



H Uspfcal Growing Cburcb 

at least this much: If the kingdom of God is 
growing, if the sun is rising, by what means on 
our part is it being brought about? If the 
kingdom is not growing, if the sun is setting, 
where is the fault ? The Chinese have a prov- 
erb: "What will you have? says God; pay for 
it and take it." It is not too much to say that 
if the church of this day wants a rising sun and 
will pay for it, it may have it. If, on the other 
hand the church pays the price of a setting sun, 
it will have that. 

There are some of us who feel that we are 
not entirely ignorant of the indifference of the 
church, but who cannot see the sun as a setting 
one, to whom the kingdom of God is growing, 
to whom the Word of God is prevailing as it has 
not done for years before. And yet there are 
sins of indifference which ought to trouble our 
hearts. If we mean to see the kingdom grow, 
how shall we bring it about? How does the 
kingdom grow on its human side? I am not 
forgetting, we may never wisely forget for an 
instant, that the power of the kingdom of God 
lies in God, and yet it is true that for us the 
most important element in its growth is that 
with which we are charged. Time was when 

3 



Ube ©rowing Cburcb 



men thought the sun rose over a fixed earth. 
We have learned in astronomy, what we need to 
learn in religion, that the rising or the setting 
of the sun is determined by the turning of the 
earth toward the sun or away from it. Under 
what conditions does the church turn toward 
the sun? When may we frankly put the re- 
sponsibility for the growth of the church on 
God, feeling that we have done our share ? 
a typical Whatever our theories of such matters may 

case of ° 

growth. be, and we ought to have them, we need to test 
them by the cases which appear in history. 
Probably no church of New Testament times is 
more fully described than that at Ephesus, and 
it repays study as a typical instance of a church 
growing. Whatever principles may be found 
ruling in this case will be worth applying to 
present conditions. There are some reasons 
why the church at Ephesus is of special perti- 
nence to our own time. The odds were heavily 
against its growth. Opposition was intense, 
and the young church quietly gathered up that 
opposition into its own life and used it to ad- 
vance its own interests. If the church of the 
present day thinks the spirit of commercialism 
is its most serious foe, that was the foe of the 

4 



a Epical ©rowing Cburcb 

early Ephesian church, a foe intrenched in the 
whole life of the people. If the church to-day 
feels that its position is misunderstood, that it 
is charged with indifference to the real needs Acts 19. 
of the people and with being out of harmony 
with the spirit of the times, so was the 
Ephesian church. If the church of the present Rev. 2:1-7. 
finds its grave peril in the readiness of its mem- 
bers and of those about it to become indifferent 
to its best interests and to adopt fads and 
fancies, so did the Ephesian church. Most of 
all, if the present church finds but few men who 
are ready to open their lives to the sovereign 
Spirit of God and to yield to His mastery, so 
did the church at Ephesus. The accounts in 
the Acts, in the Epistle of Paul, and in the 
little letter to the "angel of the church" in the 
second chapter of the Eevelation, suggest 
singular likeness between that church and the 
church of our own day. 

The case is a pertinent one, also, because it is 
one wherein the miracles and unusual powers 
attributed to the leaders were in use and yet 
had no large effect and were not magnified. We 
are told of them with the unique expression, 
nowhere else used, I believe, that they were 

5 



Ube ©rowing Cburcb 



Acts 19:11. 



Acts 2:17. 



Ctr 



Acts §8. 



'special miracles." No prominence is given 
them in the account, and in his address to the 
elders of the church sometime after, Paul 
makes no reference to them whatever, though 
it would have been most natural to have done 
so. In the epistle he makes no mention of 
them, and they are not used in the letter of the 
Spirit to the church in the Eevelation. They 
were wrought, but they served a purely tem- 
porary purpose. The need and the service of 
the wonderworking power were rapidly dis- 
appearing, and after this we have record of any 
such power only twice, and then under most 
peculiar circumstances, though the record con- 
tinues for nearly thirty years. You no sooner 
begin to talk of such things in the present day 
than some one bemoans the weakness of the 
church in that it has lost this miraculous 
power. It is not to the point here to discuss 
that question. Enough to say just now that 
it is far from proved that the church would be 
one whit the stronger if it were thought of as 
*, m agency for the cure of men's bodies or the 
liealing of physical diseases. And at any rate, 
the Ephesian church did not grow by means of 



H Topical ©rowing Gburcb 

miracles, and if we have not the power of 
wonderworking, we have the same chance as it 
had for continuous and wide-reaching growth. 
At one or two points, indeed, the church of 
the present day has distinct advantage over the 
early church. It is striking that immediately Acts 6:7. 
after the increase in the organization of the 
church, which made all its work more orderly, 
we are told that it made a marked advance. 
That hints at the value of organization and 
equipment. A certain measure of this the 
Ephesian church had. But it could boast no 
such machinery for good service as that of the 
present church. It has become the fashion to 
say that we have too much organization, or as 
one of my brethren loves to say, that we have 
"run to wheels." That is matter for personal 
opinion. On this we shall agree, at any rate: 
a well organized church, with marshalled forces, 
is far better able to undertake the work of 
conquest than one in chaos and running at 
loose ends. It is better to have an over- 
organized army, than a shapeless mob. And 
it is largely our own fault if our churches ever 
seem over-organized. Every feeble society 



TTbe Crowtng Cburcb 



means that some one saw a need which he 
tried to supply, and when he had his 
machinery ready for the work strength or zeal 
failed, and he went not to his task. Meanwhile 
are we sure he did not see a need and that the 
machinery was superfluous? The Ephesian 
church was not, at least, over-organized. There 
are hints that the organization had become 
Acts 20:28. rather definite, but it could hardly have been 
so highly developed as in any well regulated 
church of the present day. 

Nor had the Ephesian church the example 
and inspiration of other churches in such de- 
gree as has our church. There are instances 
which could be held up to it as noble and 
worthy of emulation, but there lay before it no 
such far-reaching record of great work as lies 
before any open-eyed church to-day. It re- 
quires an immense amount of forgetting for 
a man to lose his faith in God. It requires 
an unspeakable ignorance to say that the 
church may not hope to master the prob- 
lems that are set before it. What then, shall 
we do with history? The Ephesian church 
had no history worth the hearing. Here were 



H Epical ©rowing Cburcb 



principles of life and of church control which 
were presented with authority: "They are 
good; try them." Yes, but suppose these prin- 
ciples have been put to the long test of the 
centuries and have been found good, does not 
the argument in their behalf gain weight? 
Every year of the life of the church gives its 
people an added advantage over the early 
church. And the Ephesian church had not 
the advantage generally supposed, that it had 
a sense of the personal presence and life of 
our Lord. It was remote from the scene of 
His earthly life, and its word of Him came 
from those who have told us the same story of 
their knowledge of Him. Their chief leader 
had probably never seen Him in the flesh, but 
had become passionately assured of Him on 
the Damascus road, when he saw Him with 
blinded eyes. Such assurance, that will not 
be gainsaid, comes to men of our own day 
without the outward signs of the presence of 
Christ, and they become mighty as Paul was, 
by reason of that assurance. 

However close the parallel may seem, here 
is an early chureh, under apostolic leadership, 



XTbe ©rowing Cburcb 



which had such marked growth that it is fre- 
quently mentioned. The church of our own 
day, seeking to know how it may grow and 
approach the fulfillment of its purpose, may 
well take it into careful thought. 



10 



2>ivine Element in Cburcb ©rowtb 



II. THE DIVINE ELEMENT IN CHUECH 
GEOWTH. 

HUMAN activity in the growth of the 
church, is, after all, only co-operation 
with God. Back of all our energy lies the divine 
power. That is the uppermost fact in all our 
theorizing about the matter. We hear very lit- 
tle lately about getting up a revival, and that 
little we do not like. The preposition gives a 
wrong angle to our thought. Eevivals come 
down. The water of refreshing is poured down 
on the church; it is not pumped up. In a cer- 
tain sense, therefore, the church must wait the 
gracious purpose of God for its time of marked 
growth. Whatever its people may do, the more 
real the reviving, the more certain they are 
at the end of it that it came as the gift of 
God. 

This seems particularly true in the church 
in Ephesus. The theme of the Epistle, which 
certainly went to it, whether it was meant 
solely for that church or not, is the right 
of Christ as Head over His church. It is 

11 



Zbc Growing Cbutcb 



like one prolonged love-letter telling the 
virtues of the Lord of the new-wedded church. 
If we believe the account of Eusebius and 
think that John the Beloved passed his last 
days there, and if we see in the Gospel which 
he wrote his closing message, there is further 
suggestion of the sovereign right of Christ 
over His church. The fourth Gospel is the 
account of His life and work which most 
magnifies Himself and His mastery, not over 
winds and trees and things, but over minds 
and hearts. It is here the deep philosophy of 
the Christian theology is disclosed or hinted. 
It is here that Christ reveals the dependence 
of His church on Himself. If the Gospel was 
written in Ephesus, be sure the messages were 
many times spoken to the Ephesians. 

There is one incident in connection with the 
account in the Acts, which makes the divine 
element in the growth of the church specially 
Acts 19:1-7. clear. There were twelve men, who were 
honest with the little they knew, who knew 
only a little. Twelve men — a new apostolate 
for that one church. Their words indicate 
that they knew there must be something more 



12 



Divine Element in Cburcb (Browtb 

than they yet had, but they had not received 
that better something, did not even know 
whether they might receive it. They were 
men who were willing to be led on into fuller 
knowledge and more explicit consecration. 
They called for no labored argument. They 
were open-hearted toward God. Their faces 
turned toward the sun. Thus they became a 
nucleus for the growing church. The activity 
of the church was in part an exudation from 
their Spirit-filled lives. So soon as they were 
ready for the gift of the Spirit, the gift came 
and they received Him into their lives. 

It will be remembered that the first forward Acts2:4i. 
step of the church came after the Pentecost 
blessing, when three thousand were brought 
into the fellowship of the church. That gift 
was accompanied with the power to speak with 
tongues, about which so much discussion has 
been had. Once afterwards and here we are Actsio:46. 
told that the power of tongues came with the 
gift of the Spirit. In the other cases no men- 
tion is made of any special or apparent accom- 
paniments, save that there is new vigor and 
new ability for the work of the church. The 



13 



Zbc Growing Cburcb 



gift of the Spirit was then and is now the 
pledge of God's power for the growth of His 
church. 
The baptism There is abundant literature in the current 

of the spirit. 

catalogues on the baptism of the Spirit. Per- 
haps there cannot be too much. The purpose 
of this study is not advanced by analysis of 
the cases of the gift of the Spirit, since we 
are examining the human elements in the 
growth of the church. It is, however, much 
to the point to urge that in every case the 
Spirit came upon those who were willing in 
their own hearts to come under His control. 
There was a certain preparedness which made 
them fit. There was an honest obedience to 
the truth which they had received, which ap- 
pears in all cases. 

This much of the gift of the Spirit is in our 
own power. This past year I heard a bur- 
dened pastor say that the most disheartening 
feature of his church was the fact that he had 
none among his members who seemed dis- 
satisfied with poor conditions that prevailed, 
or were ready to open their hearts to some new 
and better influence of the Spirit of God. I 
remember how sadly another pastor declared 

14 



Bfvine Element in Cburcb Orowtb 

that he had no one in his church who was 
eager and restless for the winning of others. 
On the other hand a pastor of a packed church 
warned his brethren in my hearing that a 
well-equipped, largely attended church is in 
grave danger of becoming a powerless church, 
because it becomes content with things as they 
are, and has none of that dissatisfaction which 
is the foregleam of the coming of the Spirit. 
Some of the advice whereby we are urged 
to wait quietly for the gift of the Spirit loses 
its point in this fact: that He came upon His 
people sometimes in New Testament days 
when they were in the thick of their work, 
doing each day the thing which their teaching 
until then had given them power to do. The 
man who is faithful to the baptism of John 
and is open minded to something better is a 
fit subject for the coming of the Spirit in 
power. We need the quiet and calm of life 
that we may know some of the truths of God. 
But there are truths which we learn only as 
we follow on to know the Lord, out in the 
blaze of the busiest life. What He seeks in 
us is an honest open mindedness to the new 
and better things which He would reveal to 

15 



TObe ©rowing Cburcb 



us. That will lead us sometimes to the upper 
room, and its crowd of one hundred and 
twenty, or it may lead us to the small Ephesian 
group of a dozen, or to the Cornelian group of 
close friends. No matter, we shall receive the 
gift of the Spirit. 

There is no record of the marked coming 
of the Spirit upon the whole Ephesian church. 
Doubtless He did come, but it was through the 
little nucleus first, through the little company 
who were ready. Upon the others He came 
in the power which was needed for their work. 
Every church of the present day waits and 
must wait for such a nucleus around which it 
may grow, through which the power of .God 
may come upon it. The Spirit cannot come 
upon a few for all, but His power may come 
through a few for all. Can you who are read- 
ing this line, point out any reason why you 
should not be part in that nucleus in your 
own church? Are you certainly honest with 
all the truth you have received? Cannot you 
open your heart to any further and better 
thing which He may be ready to give you? 
Does it seem to you that there is something 
better than you yet know, some higher bap- 

16 



SMvfne Element in Cburcb (Browtb 

tism which you have not received? Or are 
you benumbing your dissatisfaction with your- 
self and your spiritual attainments ? 

Sometimes a young man comes to me with The need for 

_ dissatisfac- 

a story of his spiritual life and its deadness, tion. 
saying that he fears he is morbid, but he 
wants something that he sees others have. So 
deceitful are our hearts that it is almost 
dangerous to tell such an inquirer that his 
very dissatisfaction is part of his readiness for 
the better thing. The peril is that he may 
then turn his mind toward his own state of 
unrest instead of toward the better thing 
which he wants. But the thing which it may 
not be wise to say too clearly is the very true 
thing, for all that. We are in no condition to 
receive the larger gift of the Spirit until we 
know ourselves to lack something. We may 
not know whether the thing we lack is avail- 
able, but we may know well that it is needed. 
Not many worse things can come to the life 
of a man than to stand in the presence of 
something that is confessedly better than his 
life has yet attained, and then settle down con- 
tentedly in the poorer life. Whatever the rea- 
sons he may give, it is always bad for a man 
b 17 



Zbc Growing Cburcb 



to turn away from the highest ideals and con- 
tent himself with the lower. It is that willing- 
ness to be something less than the best that 
makes it difficult for the conferment of the 
Spirit to come to us. We see other men mani- 
festing a spirit of consecration which is far be- 
yond our own. We know we ought to attain 
that level ourselves. For a time it makes us 
restless and dissatisfied. If then we begin to 
find excuses for ourselves, if we conjure up con- 
ditions in our case that are different from those 
in their cases, we are entering on the first act of 
the tragedy of the soul. Presently we will settle 
down to an ideal-less life, and then may God 
pity us! I often hear men say that God can- 
not use a discouraged man. I have reason 
to be glad that it is not quite true. Is it not 
true to say that He cannot magnify Himself 
in a satisfied man? Is it not the man who 
knows there is an unfulfilled promise in his 
life who receives the gift of the Spirit ? 
The spirit is At the same time, it must be noted that 
present. we nee( j ^ wa ^ ^ ^ a t enduement. Since 

Pentecost, the Spirit's power is a present fact 
in the church, and the need is that we shall 
be about the work for which already we are 

18 



SHvine Element in Cburcb ©rowtb 

enabled of God, in full assurance that it is in 
the line of that service that further power 
comes. It is faithfulness to the baptism of 
John that brings us to the baptism of the 
Holy Spirit. 

The other day one of my friends spoke of a 
community near my own home as "finished and 
roofed over." There are souls who count them- 
selves so, and there are such churches. They 
have no sense of the larger thing that is pos- 
sible. They have no sense of their smallness 
and incompleteness. They have said what the 
older version incorrectly makes the Ephesian 
apostolate say: "We have not heard whether 
there be any Holy Ghost." Is there anything 
better than we have? We have not heard of 
it. Our preacher, our choir, our growth, our 
prospects — can there be any better? If so, 
we do not know of them. Let no word be said 
against the happy life which many a church 
lives, but let it be urged that life that feels 
itself a fulfillment instead of a prophecy has 
somehow missed the point of its being. If we 
have not yet received the gift of the Holy 
Spirit, then there is something larger and 
better for us. 

19 



Zbc ©rowing Cburcb 



Such a nucleus of open minded, Spirit-re- 
ceiving men every church must have. At its 
very center, surely, ought to be the pastor. If 
any man may be expected to let the power of 
God fully and unreservedly into his life, it is 
he. His temptations to keep Him out are 
graver than any of his people know. How 
wretchedly ambition of the wrong sort lures 
him on! How almost impossible it is for him 
to keep sweet-spirited and humble before God 
when he is forever before people who watch 
''Thecihame- him! One of the younger writers has just 
given us a book whose story turns on the 
career of a man who is unable to get away 
from his sense of the presence of other people. 
He is always asking what they will prob- 
ably think of what he is doing. He magni- 
fies little incidents in his life so that he may 
be more admired and more thought about by 
those who hear them. Alongside him is an- 
other man, a minister, who seems almost 
brutally indifferent to the opinions of others, 
is counted so very superior to applause that it 
seems cheap in his presence, but he also con- 
fesses before the story is written out that he is 
fighting the same subtle enemy in all his harsh- 

20 



SHvine Element in Cburcb <5rowtb 

I I «■■■ II I U ■ I I I W ill II III! ■ ——MM— I lli 

ness. Down in his heart it is his constant ques- 
tion whether people have seen and have ap- 
proved what he has done. He even comes to 
make his very indifference to them part of his 
eagerness to have them note him. Many a 
man knows what that struggle is. Or else 
there comes a kind of hardening toward other 
opinions than one's own, a satisfaction with 
the baptism one has received, which is peril- 
ous. There have been so many vagaries 
preached and taught, such fanciful things 
have been said and written about this very 
matter of the baptism of the Spirit that some 
of us are in danger of turning away from the 
whole of it, feeling that it is largely imagina- 
tion, while down in our hearts we know there 
is something we have not that would make us 
more efficient in the service of the church. Or 
we become engrossed with the equipment of 
our churches and lose sight of what we know 
is their only hope of power. We get out of 
connection with the true source of strength. 
The hinges of our knees rust with disuse. 
Our Bibles open only to our texts. And yet 
it is we first of all who should go to form the 
Spirit-filled nucleus of the growing church. 

21 



XTbe ©rowfng Cburcb 



The people But if the pastor should not so yield him- 
thep^storf self, there are his people who may take the 
place. There are people with burdened hearts 
who are waiting for the moving of their 
pastors. Many a time at the end of a meeting 
where some strong man has voiced the call of 
God to something higher and finer than the 
life we are now living, I have heard devout 
men and women say with a sigh, "0, if only 
my pastor had been here." Let part of it be 
affectation, let part of it be goody-goody, it is 
still true that the people are at times in ad- 
vance of their pastors in the knowledge of the 
Spirit's power. I have heard workers say, "We 
can do nothing; our pastor is not really a 
spiritual man." Have they a right to say such 
a thing ? Is there but one way to be spiritual ? 
May there not be ways wherein a man may be 
in true connection with the source of all power 
and yet not appear to hold such fellowship 
with Him as others may? In a western city 
a priest of the Catholic church, who was ac- 
cused of a grave fault and against whom the 
evidence was conclusive, had seemed so hard- 
ened and had shown so little sense of sin that 
even his friends who exonerated him from the 

22 



2>it>ine Element in Cburcb ©rowtb 

crime were amazed. As he sat in a great 
church waiting the judgment of his superior, 
he swooned away and presently died. When 
they disrobed him for his burial, they found 
wrapped around his loins a small chain, so 
bound that every step brought him pain, found 
it bedded in the flesh where he had worn it 
for years. Was he in no wise penitent though 
his penitence took not the forms of the peni- 
tence of most men? Are there not pastors 
who seem strangely indifferent to spiritual life 
whose currents of spiritual life run deeper 
than our own? One year I was assigned dur- 
ing the meeting of a church court to be enter- 
tained with a man whom I had always thought 
cold and unspiritual. His stateliness was 
nothing short of stiffness, and to hear his 
pulpit prayers you would have thought him 
stilted and distant. But as I watched him 
day by day, and heard him pray in his room, 
or heard his intimate conversation and marked 
its deep spiritual fervor, my heart condemned 
me. Here was a man who knew God as most 
men do not, who held everything in spiritual 
balances; yet to this day most men look at 
me incredulously when I say it of him. 

23 



Ube (Stowing Cburcb 



But even if a pastor is not in the inner circle 
may not there be such a circle? Are there 
not faithful, earnest men and women who are 
dissatisfied with what they now have and long 
for something better? Is there any reason 
why you, my brother, should not be one in 
your own church? It will not demand many 
to make the new apostolate for any church. 
From them the power spread in Ephesus. 
Through them the whole church was inspired. 
The power was from God, as it must always be, 
at the beginning and at the end, but it came 
upon them because they were ready for some- 
thing better than their lives had and were 
willing to receive it. 



24 



preacbina of tbe ©rowing Gburcb 



III. THE PEEACHING OF THE GEOW- 
TNQ CHUECH. 

AT THE very forefront of the account of 
the church at Ephesus stands this fact: 
that it grew by reason of faithful and persistent 
preaching and teaching. Several times we are 
told of this element in the history of the 
church. One quality of the preaching is too 
plain to be overlooked — what we may call the 
frankness of it, its completeness. There was 
no seeking to offend people, and no joy in 
having done so, but there was no effort to 
avoid it. At the very time when it was of 
importance to win the favor of men, Paul so 
preached that there was considerable offence 
taken. His preaching was not brutal, you may 
be sure of that; but it was utterly and ex- 
plicitly frank. At the end of his ministry with Acts 20:20. 
the church he prided himself on the fact that 
he had dared to tell his hearers the whole coun- 
sel of God. Therein he felt himself pure from 
the blood of all men. Three suggestions are Actsi9:8. 
made as to the method of his preaching: he 

25 



Uhc (Browing Cburcb 



Acts 19:13. 



Acts 19:10. 



The preach- 
ing for to- 
day. 



"reasoned," appealed to men's intellects; he 
"persuaded," appealed to their wills; it is evi- 
dent from the context that he did not fail to 
arouse their feelings. His appeal was to the 
whole man. This appeal was in behalf of the 
kingdom of God, and was so plainly based on 
the life and teaching of Jesus that He became 
the main thought of the hearers. Few preach- 
ers of the present day would ask any finer 
testimonial to their preaching than the words 
of the sons of Sceva, "I adjure you by Jesus 
whom Paul preacheth." Through all his 
reasoning and moving, Paul managed to keep 
it before even his most careless hearers that 
he was preaching Jesus. Finally, it is evident 
from the result that Paul did not do all the 
preaching. Enough was done so that all the 
people of the province heard the word within 
about two years. That means that the people 
who accepted Jesus became preachers, each in 
his own place and way. 

All this suggests the need of the preaching 
of the present day. What is the sort of preach- 
ing that will make the church grow ? We min- 
isters do not pretend to know it all. We have 
much to learn from any man who will come to 

26 



IPreacbfna of tbe ©rowing Cburcb 

us with candid and kindly criticism. Certainly 
there can be no resentment of an adverse judg- 
ment. All that can be claimed in fairness is 
that we want to learn better. Surely, however, 
certain traits ought to mark the preaching of 
the present pulpit. 

For one thing it ought to be frank and un- 
reserved. It ought to deal with the actual 
conditions of men. It ought not to deal with 
sinning men as though there were no sin. It 
ought not to smooth matters over so that 
hearers know the man is preaching a half 
truth for the sake of favor. Better young 
Joseph Parker standing on the beam of the 
saw pit, out of an honest heart preaching hell 
and damnation, than a smooth-voiced softness 
that cannot bear to say an unpleasant truth. 
A wise old elder once offered the petition in 
my prayer meeting that I might never be 
afraid of the people when I sat in my study 
preparing to preach. I thought it an odd 
prayer. I now know it to be a very impor- 
tant one. There is nothing that can create a 
barrier between a preacher and his hearers 
more surely than their feeling that he is hedg- 
ing on his own beliefs because he fears a frank 

27 



Ube ©rowing Cburcb 



statement would not be satisfactory to them. 
I went with a great crowd into a large hall in 
New York City one afternoon. A man just 
before me expressed with a half laugh the hope 
that a certain young man would not speak dur- 
ing the meeting. His friend asked him the 
reason. "0," he said, "that man always makes 
me uncomfortable when he speaks." Well, 
that is what preaching ought to do for us much 
of the time. It ought to make us uncomfort- 
able if we have become satisfied with low ideals, 
if we have begun to yield to the lower life, if 
we are getting into the ways of sin. As the 
meeting went on, and the young man did 
speak, I saw quickly why he made men un- 
comfortable. There was such a persistent and 
explicit presentment of the claims of Christ 
upon life that no man who claimed allegiance 
to Him could bear the presence of sin in his 
life. If a man is in rebellion against Christ, 
or is leaving Him out of life, then surely our 
preaching ought to unsettle his self-satisfac- 
tion. And having done this, it ought to point 
quickly to the Lamb of God that taketh away 
the sins of the world. It is little to make a 



28 



IPreacbfng of tbe Growing Cburcb 

man uncomfortable, unless he is made also to 
see the place where he may find comfort. 

Every minister needs occasionally to go back 
over his sermons to see if the man who has 
followed him through a fair course of time has 
had a sight of all the great truths of God. 
Have I declared the whole counsel of God ? I 
have laid stress on the need for conversion; 
have I also built up my people in the con- 
structive truths? I have told them the story 
of the love of God; have I shunned to say any 
frank word of the holiness of God? I be- 
lieve and preach that God is love; does it seem 
impossible to preach also that our God is a 
consuming fire? Have I dealt with my peo- 
ple's souls as I would have my own soul dealt 
with? Have I preached in sight of the 
judgment ? 

I do not find any one who does not say that The sense 
there is lack of a keen sense of sin among men 
in these days. Some are glad that it is so, feel- 
ing that the sense of the perfect life is better 
than the sense of imperfection. But most 
of us do not see that the sense of the per- 
fected life has come with the loss of the sense of 



29 



Zhe Growing Gburcfo 



sin. It would doubtless be better for our 
hearers to be won to the life of holiness rather 
than be driven from the life of sin. But the 
loss of the sense of sin must have some reason. 
So far as it is traceable to causes in life outside 
of the control of the church we are not now 
concerned with it. It is fair to ask, however, 
whether it is not to be traced in part to our 
own failure to be frank with our people in 
matters of holiness and law. It is not to be 
supposed that mere harping on the law of God 
and the fact of sin is the cure. There is a good 
deal said about sin, after all. The law of God 
is not omitted from many sermons that I have 
a chance to hear. But there is nothing which 
so arouses our sense of sin and evil as the 
thought of the steps God has taken to be rid of 
it. The preaching of the cross as the means 
of God's atonement — is not that a theme too 
little used ? We read a great many rhapsodies 
on Christ. Ehapsodies do not save. We do not 
read so much about an atoning Christ. And 
until we come ourselves and bring our people 
into sight of the death of Christ as the means 
of salvation, we and they will have a weak sense 
of sin. 

30 



preacbing of tbe ©rowing Cburcb 

Some of us may be at no fault in this regard. 
Is it still possible that our people have become 
calloused with our repeated denunciation of sin, 
and have come to expect it from us, so that it 
means less ? Constant dropping wears away the 
stone but have you not noticed how the plastic 
clay grows hard and stony under the perpetual 
dropping of the water under your eaves ? May 
it not be that we have denounced sin without 
the tender word of salvation and pardon ? An 
old minister said to a younger brother one day, 
"Ah, laddie, you left us bruised and bleeding, 
but you said no word of the good Physician 
who was near by." One of my brethren asked 
once if it were not possible to preach the love 
of God so fully that men would take encourage- 
ment in sin from it. Not so fully, no, but in 
such manner perhaps. Might we not take our The circuit 
people quite around the cross, letting them 
stand with us at the back of it where is only 
rough wood, rigid and hard like the law which 
it fulfils, letting them stand on the left side 
where the thrust of the spear has brought out 
the cleansing blood, letting them stand on the 
right side with its outreaching hand of help for 
our needs, letting them stand last in front 

31 



TCbe ©rowfna Cburcb 



where they may see the face of one like our- 
selves, thorn-crowned and worn in our behalf, a 
Son of God and Brother to us all? Does not 
the whole counsel of God involve all that ? May 
we not make the whole circuit ? 

Present day preaching ought to make its ap- 
peal to the whole man. I do not know that any 
one sermon can do it, but in the long run of 
the sermons, the whole man ought to be 
The appeal touched. The sermon ought to make appeal to 

to reason. G rr 

the reason of man, ought to have its severe 
logic, its strong reasoning, which brings us into 
such relation to truth that we cannot be honest 
with ourselves without accepting it. If the 
truth cannot be so presented, then it is not the 
truth. No man gives up his intellect when he 
accepts Christ. He never finds it until then. 
"It is in presence of The Word that we learn 
the use of words ." I fear there may be men 
turned away from the truth of Christ because 
they find individual cases of such bad reasoning 
that they doubt the whole teaching. A Uni- 
versity professor said a while ago that he did 
not go to church because he found himself in 
constant rebellion against the logical processes 
that were employed. I know one minister who 



32 



preacbfna of tbe ©rowing Cburcb 

has failed in an important place in large part 
because he could not hold his own as a thinker 
with the men of his church. They had not 
thought largely in his own line, and he had 
every chance, but they had thought in their 
own line, and thinking is the same whatever 
your line, and they could see through his 
closest mesh of argument. A teacher once said 
of a pupil in my hearing: "Yes, he is going 
to be a preacher. He is no thinker, so he will 
never have anything to say, but he will say it 
uncommonly well." But sermons that have 
nothing in them, even if that be uncommonly 
well said, will not make a strong and growing 
church. 

And the preaching ought to make its strong The appeal 
appeal to the will. It ought to call men to 
decision. The church is not a school where 
people are taught. It is not a club-house 
where people get together for their own pleas- 
ure. The church is a place where men are 
brought to decision and action. It is a place 
where men are inspired to say, "I will" to 
God at some point in their lives where they 
have been silent before this. Preaching which 
does not appeal to a man's will may be very 

C 33 



Ubc ©rowing Cburcb 



entertaining and may be very eloquent but 
it will not make a growing church. That 
is one marked difference between an essay 
and a sermon. An essay may be profitably 
read from a pulpit perhaps, but it is not 
a sermon. From my Seminary days I have 
carried Dr. Hastings' story of Lyman Beecher 
and the sermon on repentance. Driven from 
his work by physician's orders, the senior 
Beecher had gone to the seashore, where he 
was fishing and roughing it. One Sunday 
morning he went to a little church whose young 
pastor recognized him and insisted that he 
preach. "Not at all," was the answer, "I am 
in fishing clothes, I have no sermon and I am 
here to rest." So the young fellow went into 
the pulpit and, as Beecher told it, "read a very 
good essay on repentance," defined it, showed 
how necessary it is and — sat down. "Then," 
said the sturdy theologian, "I went up into the 
pulpit, fishy as I was, and put the cracker on 
that sermon, told the people it meant that 
they must repent or they would be lost, every 
one of them, and dismissed the congregation." 
Turning to the preacher, he said, "Sir, you 
ought to be hung! It is a capital crime to 

34 



IPreacbfng of tbe (Browing Gburcb 

bring people into presence of such a truth and 
never ma,ke them feel it as their personal busi- 
ness." We do not need people who know what 
repentance is, but people who know how to 
repent and have done it. The sermon must 
shut a man up to some sort of decision, a de- 
cision of mind or of act. It must make appeal 
to his will. A man once said to me about Dr. 
John Hall, that he could preach the doctrine 
of the sovereign election of God so that you 
felt like going out at once and getting to work. 

Certainly the preaching of the present day The appeal 
has its appeal to make to the feelings of men. ings. 
We are very much afraid of that. We do not 
like emotional preachers. It is so possible to 
make a cheap appeal to the emotions. 
Our tears all lie near the surface and 
a pathetic incident or a touching poem may 
often jostle them over. In one sermon of a 
popular preacher, who has singular power with 
men, I witnessed the touching death of six 
persons and the people wept at each bedside. 
I asked a brother minister once what he thought 
of a certain evangelist. "I do not like him at 
all," he replied, "he is always boring for 
water." You have not made a man a Christian 

35 



Ube ©rowing Cburcb 



because yon have made him weep. Nor have 
you converted him because you have made him 
laugh at a funny story. You may make only 
a cheap appeal to his tears. 

But we would err sadly if we allowed that 
fact to hide from us the appeal which the 
gospel of Christ makes to the emotions. Belief 
is an act of the intellect; acceptance of Christ 
is an act of the will; but love is an act of the 
emotions. And it is love that is set out in 
fullest relief in the Scriptures. It is one of 
our saddest defects that we are so unmoved 
by that which ought to thrill us. We can 
speak of the loss of men, with no quiver in our 
voices. We can speak of the glory that awaits 
the believer, with no thrill of our hearts. It 
is a sane remark of a sane man that we are 
suffering from dry-eyed conversions and a dry- 
eyed church. Mothers will weep great tears 
over the failing health of sons, but will dis- 
cuss with steady voices their animosity to 
eternal things. Friends will speak sadly of 
the tendency of a young man to be frivolous 
so that he cannot succeed in business, but will 
treat as a matter of course his indifference 



36 



preacliing. 



preacbina of tbe ©rowing Gburcb 

to his spiritual life. We need to be roused 
from our calmness. 

If such appeal is to be made it must come passion in 
from the heart of the preacher. Much of our 
preaching is too placid, too unmoved. If we 
would put more passion of our hearts into the 
sermons we preach, we would have a better 
church growth. I know a teacher of young 
men of whom I have said many times, what I 
now repeat, that the most eloquent thing about 
him is the tears that come to his eyes when 
he is pleading with men in behalf of Christ. 
In a house of mourning, a friend said to me 
concerning the daughter of the house, "I fear 
for her reason; she cannot weep." When the 
ministry cannot weep, it is time to fear for 
its power. Any thoughtful man knows what 
is meant. The breaking out of the tears of a 
weak man has no power. Habitual pulpit 
weeping is contemptible. But when a strong 
man comes in sight of the abyss and sees men 
going toward it, or in sight of the glory and 
finds men going toward that, and sees it all so 
clearly that it overcomes him, there never fails 
to be power in the preaching. 



37 



Ube ©rowing Cburcb 



The theme Meanwhile, what shall the pulpit of the day 

°* preach ~ present to the people as a message? What 
shall be our theme as ministers? If we ask 
the people, we shall have a varied answer. 
Some will tell us that they have no use for 
logic or for doctrine. Don't give us essays, 
they say, give us the gospel. They cannot see 
that the gospel makes its best appeal to the 
intellect of some men. Others say, Don't harp 
on action; educate people; teach the truth; 
above all, don't make people commit them- 
selves in church by having them stand up or 
sign papers of all sorts. Others would have 
the sermons devoted to the things of the day, 
to the effort to point out the connection be- 
tween the gospel of Christ and the events which 
transpire around us. We are reminded that 
Dr. Alexander of Princeton used to read the 
newspapers to see how the kingdom of God 
is going. Some men abuse the church if it 
does concern itself with current events, and 
call its minister sensational; other men abuse 
the church if it does not concern itself with 
current events and count its minister a spinner 
of cobwebs, weaving fantastic notions about 
the future life instead of dealing with the hard 

38 



preacbing of tbe ©rowing Gburcb 

realities of the present. In one of our cities 
recently a prominent club woman explained the 
supposed defection of women of her own sort 
from the church by the fact that ministers are 
preaching so much about the future life about 
which they know no more than the women do, 
and are not saying enough about the present 
life with which they are more concerned. 
Have we not somewhere heard men say that 
they think if a man does about as near right 
as he knows and treats his neighbor right in 
this life, he need have no fear about the 
future ? The argument is that a minister must 
tell him how to do about as near right as possi- 
ble here and let the next world take care of 
itself. 

All this might be very confusing, if the solu- Paul's 
tion of the difficulty did not lie so plainly in 
the habit of Paul's own preaching : "I deter- i cor. 2:3. 
mined not to know anything among you save 
Jesus Christ and Him crucified." The preach- 
ing is to be no harping on one string, no itera- 
tion and reiteration of one theme, but a com- 
prehensive, all-embracing estimate of life and 
its needs in terms of the crucified Lord of life. 
It leaves room for philosophy and science and 

39 



Zhe ©rowing Cburcb 



history and current events. But it furnishes the 
standard by which everything is to be gauged. 
The preaching is to be in the interest of the 
kingdom, at whose head is the crucified Christ. 
Several years ago I had the good fortune to 
drop in one day into Dr. Wm. M. Taylor's 
church when he was delivering a sermon com- 
memorative of some anniversary in his minis- 
try. It was then I first heard the illustra- 
tion of that word of Paul which Dr. Taylor 
The pivotal made famous. He said that Jesus became a 
truth. pivot for the preaching of Paul, a center from 

which he could sweep the entire circle of hu- 
man knowledge and learning, as the hands on 
the face of your clock sweep the circle of all 
the hours of the day, and yet are pivoted at 
the center and never move from it. At any 
moment of the day, you may start from the 
end of the clock hands and trace back an un- 
broken connection with the pivot whence comes 
the power of motion. And at any point in the 
preaching of Paul, however remote it might 
seem to be, you might trace back an unbroken 
connection with the crucified Christ. It was 
in this sense that he preached Christ only. He 
took his point of view at the cross, and viewed 

40 



preacbfna of tbe ©rowing Cburcb 

everything in its light and from its angle. Dr. 
William J. Chichester, beloved of all who knew 
him, under whose ministry nearly five thousand 
persons were received into the church, of whom 
more than two thousand professed their faith 
in response to his preaching, told a revealing 
fact in my hearing once. It was that he sought 
to saturate his preparation for the pulpit with 
prayer. In selecting the text, in outlining the 
sermon, in the detail of preparation and in the 
preaching, he had one great petition always in 
his mind: that he might be loyal to the one 
message of his life, that he might never lose 
the sight or the sympathy of the cross of 
Christ. I asked him privately after the little 
meeting where he had said it, what he counted 
the great ambition of his ministry. Instantly 
he replied, "Oh, to make men know Jesus 
Christ!" At a dinner in Philadelphia one 
evening I asked an elder of Dr. Maltbie D. Bab- 
cock's New York church what was the secret 
of the unusual place which he took in that city 
during his short stay there. He replied by 
saying that Dr. Babcock doubtless had a 
peculiarly attractive personality, but that he 
gave you the impression from the very first that 

41 



Ube ©rowing Gburcfo 



Preaching 

the law. 



Sinai or 
Calvary? 



he counted it such a splendid thing to be a 
Christian that he wanted everybody else to be 
one. His preaching and his personal conversa- 
tion, his whole manner of life, made you feel 
that he had the one passion to make men know 
Him. 

The chief of police of one of our largest 
cities has recently taken the ministry to task 
for not bringing the sanctions of the moral law 
to bear more heavily on the minds of men. He 
explains in part the difficulty in enforcing civil 
law by the tendency of ministers to smooth 
over the proper demands of the law of God. 
He points out that the civil officers can do 
nothing but restrain men's outward acts, warn- 
ing them not to do this or that on penalty 
of detection and punishment. On the other 
hand, the church ought to be able to root out 
of men's hearts any desire to do the wrong 
thing. There is much truth in the plea. Each 
one must decide for himself whether the minis- 
try is doing its part. The opportunity and 
need are exactly what the officer suggests. 

And yet there is another word to be said. 
Men are not brought to obedience at Sinai so 
readily as at Calvary. The example of Mis- 



42 



preacbing of tbe (Browing Gburcb 

sionary Kichards in the Congo Valley is worth 
much. He seemed unable to bring his hearers 
to any sense of sin or any wish for pardon by 
even his most faithful preaching of the ten 
commandments and the law written in every 
man's heart. It was only when the natives 
came in sight of the cross of Christ and saw 
what sin means to God that they learned what 
it ought to mean to themselves. 

None of us realizes what it means for a man 
to be lost, but we can guess something of its 
meaning when we think what God did about 
it. A little while ago, a famous surgeon was 
brought from Austria to the city of Chicago 
to perform an operation on the little daughter 
of a wealthy man. The papers reported that 
his fee was $20,000. It was a long journey, 
and involved immense cost. I do not know 
what was the matter with the little one. I 
know it was no scratched finger, no bruised 
forehead from her play. Whatever it was, I 
know it must have been something serious 
because of what the father did about it. The 
best measure we shall ever find for the depths 
into which men have fallen will be the length 



43 



XTbe ©rowing Cburcb 



of the arm with which God reached help to 
them. 
Theabso- It is this which demands our preaching 

lute neces- x ° 

sity. Christ. We must preach Him as the atoning 

Savior who claims headship over the church 
and over every man. We must preach Him 
winsomely, strongly, completely, the full-orbed 
Christ. But we must preach Him, Him — 
constantly. One Sunday afternoon I came out 
of the Brick Church in New York with a 
great throng who had been listening to Dr. 
Babcock. There were evidently a great many 
strangers, some of whom were there from 
curiosity. Just before me were two men, un- 
accustomed to the place. I heard one say to 
the other, "Well, what did you think of him ?" 
The second roused himself from his medita- 
tion, and said earnestly, "What did I think of 
him ? I do not know what I thought of him. 
But I know I think more of God for what he 
said." The next day I told Dr. Babcock what 
[ had heard and he was glad. His ministry had 
accomplished its end. 



44 



Zbe Separation of tbe Cburcb 



IV. THE SEPARATION OF THE CHURCH. 



A 



LL this is not a matter for the preacher The part of 
alone. The task is manifestly too great 



for him. Be sure "the whole of Asia" did not 
hear the word from the mouth of Paul. The 
message is one for all the people who believe. 
No church prospers in its minister alone. Let 
him be never so eloquent, never so devout, if it 
remains with him, and his people do not be- 
come eloquent for Christ in their lives and de- 
vout in their spirit, the church is not ready to 
grow. That suggests another element in the 
growth of the Ephesian church. 

Until this time, the Christians had been a 
branch of the Jewish synagogue. They had no 
separate name, and had met in any synagogue 
that was available. For the most part, they 
were simply tolerated as large minded people 
of the present day tolerate others who are un- 
usual but not harmful. It was some time after 
this that the break between Christianity and 
Judaism became open and acknowledged in 
Jerusalem. There had been, however, a grow- 

45 



Zfte ©rowing Gfourcb 



ing breach of life and manner between the 
Christians and the current life. At Ephesus, 
Acts 19:9. at last, they separated from those who were not 
followers of Christ, and became a clear-cut 
body by themselves. Casting in their lot with 
an un-Jewish company for their place of meet- 
ing, they were cut off from the synagogue and 
from any other religious group. They con- 
tinued to mingle with the others in business 
and social life, but they became in the sight of 
all men different from those who were not 
Christians. The difference was one of prin- 
ciple, of course, and not of appearance, but 
there appeared a wide enough line between 
Christians and non-Christians so that the 
difference could be noted. During the Boxer 
troubles in China, one of the marauders asked 
his chief how he should know a Christian when 
he saw one. The chief replied, "Look closely 
at the forehead of any of them, under his cap, 
and you will find a cross." While you cannot 
find any such mark, the distinction is deep 
enough to be of utmost importance. Here for 
the first time the Christians became other than 
Jews. 



46 



Ube Separation of tbe Gburcb 



Now, that was the only way in which there The argu- 
could be any emphasis given to the claim of difference. 
Christians to have a law of life superior to that 
about them. You must have a certain amount 
of perspective before you can judge a life, or 
even a theory of life. You never know the 
life you live with every moment. You need 
to hold it off from you a little sometimes and 
compare it with other lives if you are to judge 
its value. And if the church and the world 
are to be the same, then how is the Church 
to argue for its own betterness ? 

There are just two ways whereby the world 
and the church can become the same. Either 
the church must become worldly, or the world 
must become Christian. It is the ambition of 
Christ that this latter should happen. It is 
the fault of Christians that the former happens. 
Some one gave me a tract the other day which 
told of the effort of the world to gain the 
fellowship of the church. 

The Church and the World walked far apart, 

On the changing shore of time; 
The World was singing a giddy song, 

And the Church a hymn sublime. 



47 



Zbc Growing Cburcb 



11 Come give me your hand," said the merry World, 
" And then walk with me this way." 
But the good Church hid her snowy hand, 
And solemnly answered, " Nay." 

But the World continued to seek the fellow- 
ship of the Church and at last won its way, 
scorning the modesty of the Church and the 
poverty of its garments and the roughness of 
its way. Presently they were walking side by 
side — but in the World's path, not in the 
Church's path. And only the eye of God could 
see which was His Church and which was the 
ungodly World. 

" Then the angel drew near the mercy-seat, 
And whispered in sighs her name, 
And the saints their anthems of rapture hushed, 
And covered their heads with shame." 

It is a long poem, worth the reading, but it 

ness o?3ke- ^ S a S£t( ^ an( ^ ^ rUe ^ e * ^ * S ^ e wea k ness of 

ness. the Church that its members are not to be dis- 

tinguished in life and conduct from those who 
are not its members. They must mingle with 
others, even the veriest haters of Christ, in 
business and in travel and in society — they 
must and they should. But they are bound in 

48 



Zhe Separation ot tbe Cburcb 

honor to be different from them, to live a 
separated life among them. There are count- 
less opportunities whereby they may declare 
their unlikeness to others. Their new motive 
makes them radically and deeply different from 
those with whom they mingle. They are not 
their own, they are bought with a price. They 
have yielded themselves unto God, and what- 
ever they do in word or deed, they are pledged 
to do as unto the Lord and not unto men. 

It is in this way only that they can show The joy of 

the set) a- 

the joy of the Christian life. There are many rated life. 
who count the Christian life a dismal one, in 
which self-denial means bitter hardship. 
Young people are constantly saying that they 
cannot come to Christ because they are not 
yet ready to give up this thing or that and 
so lose their pleasure in life. A mother told 
me in the very week in which this is written 
that she did not believe in child Christians 
because she felt children ought to have a jolly 
time, and "of course they would have to settle 
down from all that once they went into the 
Church and declared themselves Christians." 
I read the other day of an old colored man 
in the south who had been brought up in the 

D 49 



XEbe ©rowing Cburcb 



family of a staunch Presbyterian. One night 
he attended a Methodist revival service and 
was so impressed with the fervor of the 
preacher and the zeal of the converts, that he 
joined the church himself. The next day his 
old master met him, and said, "What is this 
I hear? You have joined the Methodists? 
Didn't I bring you up a good Presbyterian?" 
"0 yes, massa, yessa, de Presbyterians is 
mighty nice folks and de Presbyterian chu'ch 
is a mighty fine church ; but hones', now, massa, 
doan you think it's a powerful dismal chu'ch 
for a niggah ?" There are young people, there 
are older people, who think Christians are nice 
folks, and the church is all right, and the 
Christian life is doubtless the right life for 
anybody who can stand it, but it is all dismal 
and unattractive. The fault is partly their own, 
I know. I am now concerned with the fact 
that it is partly the fault of the Christians 
themselves. 

When I was on my way to the ministry, a 
young woman asked me if I enjoyed preach- 
ing. Her older sister rebuked her for such a 
question, saying that young men were not going 
into the ministry because they enjoyed it, but 

50 



TTbe Separation of tbe Gburcb 

from a serious sense of their duty. Well, until 

that time I had thought the same thing, and of 

course there is truth in what she meant. But 

the question was a fair one. Granted that a 

man preaches out of a serious sense of his duty, 

cannot he enjoy his preaching? And granted 

that Christians have seen the evil of their sin, 

and have turned to Christ for salvation, is there 

nothing in that to make them bright faced 

enough to be noticeable ? We ought to reveal The happiest 

in our very separateness that the Christian life 

is the kind men ought to live if they want to be 

manliest and happiest. A woman reporter was 

at my church the other day and in her account 

of the sermon she made me say that Christians 

ought to go and make other people miserable 

until they came to Christ. What I did say 

was not half so good as that, but that is a 

striking way of saying this same thing. If 

Christians are to win men by the joy of their 

lives, it must be by a real separation from the 

world in that very particular. If a grief utterly 

breaks a Christian down, and he weeps and 

wails and refuses to be comforted, where is the 

value of his faith? If reverses distract and 

unsettle a Christian, where is he different from 

51 



Ube 6rowfng Cburcb 



The church 
as a protest. 



Luke 13:21. 



men around? If hardships unman and un- 
nerve a Christian so that he is unfitted for life, 
how shall the non-Christian be made to feel 
the power of faith ? Unless he is different from 
others, what is his argument ? 

The Church of Christ in a community ought 
to be a perpetual protest. It is separated not 
for its own sake, but for the sake of the people 
around. It seeks to win them, not by isola- 
tion, but by separation. The figure of Jesus 
is always best. He uses leaven for illustration. 
He reminds us that He wants His followers to 
be like leaven in the meal. Leaven and meal 
are intermingled, but they are not the same. 
It is the hope of the leaven that the meal shall 
become like it, but it will be the despair of 
the meal if the leaven should instead become 
meal. The leaven is itself and is not meal, in 
hope that the meal may be transformed into the 
likeness which it brings to it. Christians are 
in the world and must be separate from the 
world, for the world's sake. It is pathetic 
beyond words, both for the world and for 
the church when the church becomes worldly, 
when it cannot be distinguished in principle 
and life and conduct from the world about it. 



52 



Zbc Separation of tbe Cburcb 

An English medical officer said awhile ago that 
a single cleanly family raises the standard of 
cleanliness in a whole tenement, and that he 
has seen the removal of one such a family 
effect a deterioration all around. It ought to 
be so with a Christian life wherever it is lived. 
When, however, you can go into a circle of 
people, watching them day by day and find no 
difference among them, though there are some 
in the church and some not, it is because all 
are unconsciously Christians, or because the 
Christians have become worldly. The church 
does not grow as the kingdom of God while it is 
a secular, worldly institution. 

As a matter of common experience, the An instance 

of the argu- 

church does grow by its separated members, ment. 
Last week I heard a man tell the story of his 
conversion. It came about through his hear- 
ing the claim of two of his friends who had 
been with him in sin that they had turned 
from their sin and had become Christians. 
He did not believe it, and for one week he took 
a furlough from his office and watched them. 
Wherever he could observe what they were 
doing, he did it. They did not know it, but 
he dogged their steps as a seeking soul, to see 

53 



XLbc ©rowing Cburcb 



if they had found something which he had not. 
As he told it, I wondered what might have 
come if they had become careless or indifferent. 
Suppose their lives had been the lives of men 
of the world, suppose they had defended them- 
selves in things that are common, but not 
right, what would have been the outcome in 
the watcher's life ? Is any man among us sure 
that he is not under watch ? Is any man in the 
church ready to prove that some other man, dis- 
satisfied with himself and his ways, is not watch- 
ing him day by day whenever his life comes into 
view, in order to see whether there is anything 
in this Christian claim? There are such 
earnest souls. Let no man's impatience with 
quibblers, who use the faults of Christians as 
mere excuse, blind him to the fact that there 
are honest men who are watching the church 
in dead earnest to see if the claim of Christ 
is true. 
The best In a little group of men, leaders in the 

argument ox ? 

for and church, I heard the question asked, "What is 

against x 7 

Christ. the weightiest argument in behalf of Christ 

today?" One of the wisest in the group re- 
plied after a moment's silence, "The weightiest 
argument for Christ, and the weightiest argu- 

54 



Ube Separation ot tbe Gburcb 

ment against Christ today, is the same argu- 
ment — Christians." That is true. It is what 
Peter means in bidding us to walk carefully in 1 Peter 2:15. 
daily life that we may put to silence the ignor- 
ance of men. It is what Jesus means when He 
calls us the lights of the world. 

And not alone in daily life; there are ex- 
plicit things which the Christian profession 
demands in behalf of the world. It is part of 
the separation of the church that it declares its 
law of life to be the best there is, and there-* 
fore that it feels an interest in men with a 
poorer law of life. If it goes on living its own 
life, indifferent to the non-Christian lives all 
about it, it is evident that it has no passion 
for its own life. It cannot be too often em- The church 

exists for 

phasized that the church is an organization the sake of 

r G men outside. 

which does not exist for the sake of its own 
members, but for the sake of those who are on 
the outside. Other organizations, labor unions, 
employers 5 unions, lodges, fraternities, exist 
for the sake of their members. So does the 
church in a very secondary way. It is for the 
sake of its members, only that they may in it 
learn how to be effective in the service of men 
who are outside. Primarily it exists for those 

55 



Z\)C Crowing Cburcb 



who are not its members. They come into it 
in their turn to reach out for others. Do you 
not recall your childhood game of "black- 
man?" One boy was on the catcher's side at 
first, and all the others tried to "run right 
through." He singled out his prey, and when 
he caught him, counted on him at once to 
help catch the others. There was no sitting on 
the base as though there were some peculiar 
merit just in being on that side. Instead, just 
as soon as he was caught, every boy became a 
catcher. That would be a capital church game. 
Every man caught, at once becoming a catcher 
— what a tremendous church force it would 
make! But that is the simplest ideal of the 
church of Christ. If, now, a member of a 
church settles down comfortably in it and 
lets the outside world get on as best it may 
without his influence or interest, he has mani- 
festly missed the point of his membership. A 
growing church must be one whose members 
have and manifest a genuine care for their 
friends who are not of the church. When, in- 
stead, people can come to a church day after 
day, and the members are so concerned with 
each other and with their own affairs that the 

56 



Zbc Separation of tbe Cburcb 

visiting people are neglected, there is sheer 
failure. That is not the way in which a church 
grows. I was much humiliated once when a Tneargu- 

i -I* i<»i-it ment of 

gentleman said of a church of which 1 was friendliness, 
pastor that it seemed a very cordial church — 
all the people who belonged there were so glad 
to see each other that they had no time to 
notice people who did not belong there. On 
the other hand, when the people of a church 
manifest an interest in their neighbors, see- 
ing to it that they have such a welcome as a 
church of Christ should give, there is present 
one of the assurances of growth. It is a sur- 
prising fact that so many people have to be 
sought out by the church. It would seem the 
natural thing for men to flock to the church 
for their eternal interests. When, however, 
some of them do so, and find in the church only 
a partial or qualified welcome, you can see how 
easily they drift away from it. Our cities have, 
in them thousands who give that as their excuse 
for neglect of the church. In their early days 
in the city, they turned to the church for 
fellowship and kindliness, and could not break 
through the crust, so they have left it out of 
their calculations entirely. I am not excusing 

57 



TTbe (Browing Cburcb 



them, such an excuse will not stand them in 
good hand in the presence of God whom they 
came to church to worship, but neither will it 
stand us in good hand that they should have 
expected nothing better. 

The church has, thus, two perils, which seem 
opposites : it may so mingle with the world that 
it is no longer separate from the world; it may 
become so self -centered that it no longer seeks 
out the world for its salvation. They are twin 
perils and they must be avoided by constant 
watchfulness. 



58 



Zbc HHscomffture of Hypocrites 



V. THE DISCOMFITUKE OF THE HYPO- 
CKITES. 

AN INTEKESTING incident in the Ephe- 
sian Church brings to sight another 
element of its strength. It is that wherein the Actsi9:i3-ie. 
sons of Sceva the Jew sought to trade on the 
religion of Christ for their own gain, getting 
its form without its substance. Commanding 
the evil spirit to come forth, their hypocrisy 
was revealed and they were over mastered. We 
are told that the news of their discomfiture 
led many to magnify the name of the Lord 
Jesus. In the Eevelation letter the Spirit Rev. 2:1-7. 
underscores the spirit of the Ephesian church 
in this regard in three counts. He praises them 
that they cannot bear evil men. In one of 
his recent sermons Dr. Watkinson notes how 
God safeguards nature and human souls as 
well by an instinctive repugnance to hurtful 
things. The Ephesian church knew the nausea 
of wicked men, could not digest them, spewed 
them out. Secondly, he praises them that they 
sat in calm judgment on pretended apostles, 

59 



Ube ©rowing Cburcb 



tried them, discovered their falseness and 
would have none of them. They refused to be 
blind followers of the blind. Then, thirdly, he 
notes their hatred of the works of the Meolai- 
tans and counts them wise in it. They had 
caught the hatred of God and copied it. As a 
woodland lake catches the blue of the sky and 
is blue and beautiful, and again reflects the 
black overhanging cloud and is dark and for- 
bidding, so the Ephesian church knew both the 
love and the hatred of God. Nicolaitans were 
pretenders, false friends of the truth. Here 
are four items in the account of the church 
which we may sum up in the one phrase of 
the discomfiture of hypocrites. 

There must be a great many people in the 
present church who are hypocrites. One learns 
it from the people outside who do not join the 
church because of them. Personally, I do not 
know these hypocrites in any worthy numbers, 
but that may be my good fortune. Indeed, I 
eeem to know as many hypocrites outside who 
plead the inside hypocrites as a pretence to 
cover their real reason for not coming out 
plainly for Christ. It is a lame excuse at best. 
It reminds one of that striking charge of 

60 



Zbc Discomfiture of Ibspocrttes 

Elijah against the people of Israel that they 1 Kings 18:21. 
were "limping between two sides." If a man 
honestly cares for Christ, what difference does 
it make to him that another man dishonestly 
pretends to care for Him ? Let him come out, 
one side or the other, with no more limping. 
So long, however, as there are hypocrites, many 
or few, in the church, they are a peril and a 
weakness to it. 

A hypocrite, wherever you find him, is a des- 
picable character and much to be condemned. 
It is specially so in religion. Dean Farrar tells 
that when the ancients wanted to offer a white 
ox on the altar of Jupiter, they would make a 
spotted ox pass for a white one by chalking 
over all the black marks. That is the dry rot 
of religion. It is hypocrisy run into folly, 
when the hypocrite goes beyond deceiving his 
fellows and plays on the credulity of God. Yet 
all hypocrisy in the church tends to the same 
folly. 

It would not be at all surprising if there were Hypocrisy a 
a good many who pretended to be Christians Christ 6 
for the sake of the gain they may receive. 
That is an unconscious but very pleasant testi- 
monial to the Christian faith. Hypocrites are 

61 



Gbc Growing Cburcb 



the devil's tribute to Christ. They mean that 
there are some distinct advantages about the 
gospel, advantages which men want and which 
they will gain without the cost of real faith if 
they can. They would sit on the right and 
left hand without being baptized with the bap- 
tism of Christ; then the places must be worth 
the having. Let us admit that there are hypo- 
crites in the church of to-day — what shall the 
church do about them ? 
Difficult to In the church or out of it hypocrisy is one 

of the hardest vices to detect. Going below 
the surface is always difficult. For one thing, 
we are ourselves creatures of moods. In a 
moment of wrath David once said, "All men 
are liars," but he did not mean it as a stand- 
ing fact of all moods. There are times when 
our souls are so vexed with wrongs we have 
suffered that we are ready to suspect all men, 
but they are doubtful times, and they do not 
leave us in good mood to deal with honest 
men who surround us. It is difficult to deal 
with hypocrisy calmly or judicially. Specially 
is it of importance that we be clear-minded 
when we deal with religious hypocrisy, for an 
error may do untold damage. You must have 

62 



Zbc Discomfiture of Hypocrites 

had profound pity for the mother of Samuel, 
Hannah, where Eli so mistook her devotion as 
to charge her with drunkenness. Only a very l Sam. 1:14. 
real devotion could have endured it. I know 
a young man whose life was slowly coming out 
into value in Christian service who seemed 
driven back into religious reticence and in- 
efficiency by a rash charge of insincerity made 
against him by one of those insinuating people 
who know all hearts but their own. We must 
needs see to it that it is not our own mood 
which leads us to find others hypocritical. 

It is difficult to detect because of the chame- its many 
leon forms it takes. No two cases of hypocrisy 
are alike. What would be hypocrisy in one 
man might be honesty in another. I have a 
friend who always smiles when he is deeply 
moved; that is, his face contorts with what 
would be a smile for others. You would count 
him amused at sufferings if you did not know 
his peculiarity. True religion shows itself 
very differently in different people. It would 
be sheer hypocrisy for me to use the language 
which to some other man would be an accurate 
statement of his condition. In some of the 
later devotional books I find experiences de- 

63 



TLbc Growing Cburcb 



scribed which seem to me so impossible as to 
be sheer affectations, and sometimes I find 
young people much distressed because they 
have no experiences to match the phrases. The 
first inclination is to judge these experiences by 
my own and call them extreme and manu- 
factured, which means that the narrators are 
hypocrites. But they are honest as are we 
who have no such realistic experiences. They 
are simply different, that is all. The religious 
life is so individual, so peculiar to each person, 
that it is easy to mistake hypocrisy. 

It is difficult to detect because of the depth 
of the religious life. It lies in strata. You 
may count the surface layer falsified by what 
you find next below it, but are you sure there 
is not another layer farther down ? The King 
of Israel wore his robes outwardly and seemed 
almost indifferent to the suffering of his people, 
but when he rent his clothes they saw he 
was wearing sackcloth next his flesh. James 
IV. of Scotland took up arms against his father 
when only a lad, but he made his whole life 
an unseen penance, for under his robes he wore 
an iron belt, each year adding a link, that his 
repentance might be heavier each year. Have 

64 



Zbc discomfiture of Hypocrites 



you seen the deeper life of the man whom you 
count a hypocrite ? May he not be a weak man 
struggling in his better self against the very 
sin you see in him ? 

Wherever you hear the opinion that the Howshaii 

^ x hypocrites' 

church ought to cast out hypocrites, you will be punished? 
find it fair to ask how it shall be done. You 
may be morally certain that a member is a 
hypocrite, but have you ever tried to get evi- 
dence of it? It is told of one of our early Heroic 
American evangelists that in the course of an 
address he made the broad statement that all 
infidels are fools and that he could prove it in 
any given case in ten minutes. A man in the 
audience asked if he might interrupt, and re- 
marked that he must take exception to the 
statement, since he was himself an infidel and 
thought he was no fool. The preacher looked 
him over rather curiously and said, "So you 
are an infidel? Will you tell me just how 
much of an infidel?" "Certainly, sir; I deny 
that there is anything at all in religion." 
"Nothing at all in religion? Are you willing 
to go record as saying that ?" "Go on record ?" 
the infidel replied, "Why, I have been writing 
and lecturing against religion for these twenty 

E 65 



Ube Growing Cburcb 



years." The evangelist glanced at his watch 
and said, "Well, I said I could prove an infidel 
a fool in ten minutes, and I have seven minutes 
left. Fll leave it to the audience if a man 
isn't a fool to write and lecture for twenty 
years against a thing that has nothing what- 
ever in it !" Now, that is heroic treatment of 
hypocrisy that is proud of itself, that says 
what it does not mean because what it does 
mean would not sound so well. But I need 
hardly ask if it is convincing treatment and 
if it might not leave a bitterness in the heart 
of a man who was honest in spite of his 
peculiar notions. At any rate, you cannot trap 
a hypocrite so easily in common life, 
shauthey Some, mostly outsiders, would have the 

piined? church proceed to discipline all hypocrites, 

exscinding them from its membership. It is 
easy to say — the very nature of hypocrisy 
makes it virtually impossible to do. A promi- 
nent Presbyterian leader has recently declared 
that the church is done with heresy trials. 
Doubtless the wish is father to the thought, 
and the wish is the prayer of many of us. 
Heresy trials tear men's hearts and leave scars 
whose pain is long in dying away. Their gains 

G6 



Zbe discomfiture of *>spocrftes 

are so hard to discover that we will all wel- 
come the day of the last trial. If they should 
ever become a sad necessity, God make His 
church brave and wise and always loving, find- 
ing the greatest heresy not in a wrong head 
but in a wrong heart ! 

But you can find heresy; it gets out, there 
it is in black and white; once you understand 
it you know what to say of it. Not so with 
hypocrisy. Always there are other words to 
say than you have yet heard; you are moving in 
the dark; you are judging; you are trusting 
your opinions. No, you cannot discipline hypoc- 
risy even if you ought to. 

Indeed, the only safe way to bring hypo- Theseif- 
crites to discomfiture is to let them betray o?hypo- ent 
themselves. No espionage is endurable. There 
is but one way to bring it about — the church 
can be made so honest and so deeply spiritual 
that a hypocrite cannot endure it. There are 
few more pitiable things than a man who has 
caught the forms of godliness, who knows the 
phrases of religion, who can talk religious talk, 
but who ends there — such an one in the midst 
of a company of earnest, eager, deep-souled 
Christian men as they go down into the truth 

67 



crites. 



Ube ©rowing Cbutcb 



of the Gospel. Bring such a man into the 
atmosphere of real devotion, and he must be- 
tray himself. Sometimes, thank God, he is 
nobly dissatisfied with himself and becomes 
honestly a Christian. In any case, he is 
revealed. Such a man needs to be set to 
some of the work of the kingdom of God, 
needs to be sent to cast out some of the 
devils of the present day, to find how little 
such devils recognize sham godliness. One 
reason hypocrisy is so possible in the church of 
to-day is that its enterprises do not put heavy 
and long strain on the godliness of its mem- 
bers, revealing falsity. Emerson thinks there 
is no cave in all the world to hide a rogue. 
But a lifeless, inactive, undemanding church is 
a great refuge for sham Christians. Whenever 
the church or any of its members finds that 
the evils which it combats do not disappear, 
that the devils whom it calls out do not come 
forth, the question at once arises whether the 
church has not more of the form of godliness 
than of godliness itself. When the experts are 
testing opium for commerce, they pour a cer- 
tain liquid into the specimen, a liquid against 
which the drug will at once set to work. If 

68 



TLbc discomfiture of tfnjpocrltes 

it is pure, it will win against it; if it is adulter- 
ated, it will disintegrate and go to pieces in 
presence of it. Let the church get down to 
solid, straining, spiritual effort, let it test its 
members on some thoroughly Christian work, 
and its hypocrites will be revealed and their 
revelation will be their correction. I remember 
a striking paragraph in Professor Seth's Ethi- 
cal Principles in which he declares that the 
lesson of the book of Ecclesiastes is the lesson 
of work, the lesson that in activity, in deeds, 
lies man's real hope. He calls it Carlyle's 
lesson and illustrates it with the cases of Esau, 
of Tito in George Eliot's Eomola, of Steven- 
son's Markheim, of Calibar in The Tempest. 
But is it not the lesson of the whole book 
of God and the whole book of life ? Surely it 
is the deeper meaning of the word of Jesus: 
"If any man willeth to do His will, he shall John 7:7. 
know of the doctrine, whether it be of God." 
Let us watch any man set to do the work 
which calls for spiritual power, not for mere 
shrewdness and energy and ingenuity, but for 
real spiritual power, and we shall know him 
for honest or hypocrite. 

The discomfiture of hypocrites will come 

69 



Zbc ©rowing Cburcb 



about through no process of discipline, the 
condition is too subtle for that; it will come 
about through the creation of an atmosphere 
in the church which will make the dishonest 
man wretched and will lead him to expose him- 
self. It will come about through the under- 
taking of tasks worthy of the strength which 
the church claims. It is in presence of the 
tasks of the church that hypocrisy reveals its 
feebleness. If all the people of the church 
undertook its work, and tried to cast out the 
demons that are in the world, it would soon be 
known who have the power of religion and who 
have only its form. An aggressive, spiritual 
church, busy with souls, is no refuge for 
hypocrites. 



70 



Zbc Cbangeb Xives of tbe Converts 



VI. THE CHANGED LIVES OF THE 
CONVERTS. 

WE HAVE already noted the fact of the 
separation of the church from the 
world as an essential in its growth. Beside it 
we must now place another fact of the Ephe- 
sian church which helps to explain its growth, 
namely, the effect which the gospel had on the 
converts. They became different not only 
from the world, but also from their former 
selves. The account says they came in large Actsi9:i8. 
numbers and confessed and showed their deeds. 
Some who had practiced sorcery and witch- 
craft came and told the charms which they 
had used and in presence of the people burned 
their books and their charms. When the gospel 
took hold on them, it made a difference with 
them. You knew they were different by two 
facts: they were ready to come out publicly 
for the new faith, and they were willing to 
give up a great deal in its behalf. There is 
always reason to question the entire loyalty of 
a believer when you find him wanting to re- 

71 



Ube ©rowing Cburcb 



A cheap 
loyalty. 



A man made 
new. 



ceive his salvation at as little cost as possible. 
A few months ago a young woman talked to 
me about coming into my church, saying, "I 
wouldn't join such-and-such a church; it's too 
strict; but your church lets people dance, 
doesn't it ?" I doubt if I made it clear to her 
that the great question is not what the Chris- 
tian can still do for the world, but what he 
can do for his cross-bearing Master. Her heart 
was set on a following which should cost her 
nothing. There is room, also, to question the 
heartiness of the faith of a believer who talks 
very much about the possibility of being a 
Christian outside the church. Of course it is 
possible, but is it fair ? Was the Master secret- 
ly crucified? Did He slip through life with 
no public bearing of the sin load? If the 
saved soul had a passion for its Savior, it would 
cry out for chance to declare its allegiance. 

Three generations ago a young Jew named 
Mendel was living in Germany. He became a 
Christian, and the truth of Christ came to 
him with such transforming effect that he took 
a new name at his baptism and called him- 
self Neander, which means, "a new man," and 
by this name he is known as the great churcE 



73 



Zbc Cbange& Xiv>es ot tbe Converts 

historian. Such an effect the gospel is meant 
to have on all who accept it; it claims the 
power to make new men of them. If it does 
not do so, then it loses its best argument, and 
the church loses its best evidence. A church 
not separated from the world is weak argu- 
ment; a Christian not changed from his old 
self is poor testimony to Christ. 

This effect of the gospel on its believers is Theexpiana- 

° r tion of 

the great explanation of its growth in all the growth, 
centuries. You have doubtless seen Charles 
Loring Brace's book, "Gesta Christi," the 
Triumphs of Christ, in which he has made a 
study of the contacts of the gospel with early 
paganism, or Uhlhorn's heavier work on "The 
Conflict of Christianity with Heathenism." Or 
you will recall the fuller and more interesting 
work of Dr. Storrs, "The Divine Origin of 
Christianity as Indicated by Its Historical 
Effects." Its eight strong chapters almost 
cover the field. He points out these eight 
effects of Christianity: It brought first, a 
new conception of God; second, a new con- 
ception of man; third, a new principle of the 
duty of man to God; fourth, a new principle 
of the duty of man to man, with fifth, a new 

73 



Ube Growing Cburcb 



teaching of the duty of nations to each other; 
it has had a constantly inspiring effect, sixth, 
on the mental culture of mankind; seventh, 
on the moral culture of mankind and eighth, 
on the world's hope of progress. It is a safe 
and strong argument; there is no answer to it. 
The very men who tend to minimize the power 
of Christ are products of the influences which 
He has inspired. 

There are grave defects yet in the result; 
it is the weakness of the present argument 
that we are so far from a completed civiliza- 
tion. But it is fairer to compare the world 
that was with the world that is than to com- 
pare the world that is with the world that 
ought to be. By that fairer standard, the gospel 
will stand the test. Ask how far the race has 
been brought on, rather than how far it has 
yet to go. 
The first The incident at Ephesus suggests three great 

change. changes that have been made in the broad do- 

main of human thought. First, As with those 
sooth-sayers, so with men since, the faith of 
Christ has given men a sense of mastery of the 
world, rather than of truculence to it. There 
are no powers in the world about us that need 

74 



tlbe Cbanaeo %ix>ee of tbe Converts 

■ ■ ■ i i i ii — — — i ■ 

to be placated, there are no influences which 
we must fend off with some charm. The super- 
stitions of the day are our shame and we know 
it; none of us who feels their influence who 
is not ashamed of it. From all that bondage 
to fear the gospel of Christ has come to free 
us. We realize that not all people know that. 
The mediums and witches and soothsayers of 
the present day live and thrive. Otherwise in- 
telligent people speak with hushed tone of 
some strange foretelling and declare they do 
not know what to make of it. Frequently a 
new medium appears and our superstitious men 
and women run to sit at her feet and wait her 
word. It is large sport for the medium and 
it is amusing to others. Thus we reveal that 
we have not yet outgrown our heathenism, that 
we have not yet come to trust the presence of 
a Father with whom the future is safe without 
our seeing it. But all that is against the spirit 
of Christ. It is His hope that we will out- 
grow all of it and come into the life of courage 
and freedom. 

Secondly, The story suggests that the gospel The second 
magnifies the open life rather than the secretive ° ange 
one. There are no inner secrets of life which 

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Matt. 10:27. 



a few may know but which most may not know. 
The truth of God lies open to us all. There 
were times when Jesus took His disciples aside 
and told them great truths of the Kingdom, 
but He said to them, "What ye hear in the 
ear, proclaim upon the housetops." He had 
it in mind that His disciples should know the 
secret place that they might lead all men to it. 
There is one scene in George Ebers' Uarda 
which comes to mind when one speaks of this. 
It is that wherein the young priest is taken 
severely to task for having told to a common, 
uninitiated audience some of the things that 
belonged only to the inner circle of priests. 
It is a typical scene of the times. There 
were some large truths which the mass of 
people might hope to know. There were other 
truths which the new and untrained priest 
might learn, but the inner secrets of religion 
and of life were left for the initiated and could 
not be revealed to the mass of men. Over 
against such teaching Jesus sets His hope that 
men everywhere should seek to know the 
deepest secrets of His truth. There is no 
aristocracy in religion, save the aristocracy of 
humility. Every man may know and be all 

76 



Ufoe Gbange& %ivcs of tbe Converts 

that any other man may know or be. God 
has no favorite friends except those who make 
Him their favorite friend. I may not look 
upon my brother and say, "It is granted to 
him to enter into the holies and commune with 
God, but it is not for me." The truth of 
Christ is not hid, to be learned from a chosen 
few. Claims of power to read the future in 
any way that is not open to every Christian 
are not only untrue, they are un-Christian. We 
are in no case reduced to the necessity of ex- 
plaining them on any such grounds as superior 
revelations and occult powers. It is one of 
the marvels of the day that when we are so 
proud of our science, we should still be in the 
heyday of superstition and the reign of the 
occult. The teaching of Christ builds a fire 
for all dream books and secret symbols. It 
sets a premium on the open life, the life that is 
for all. 

Thirdly, The story suggests a more familiar f^£fj™ 
change in thought, magnifying the life of serv- change. 
ice over the life of gain. It has brought us 
to feel that our fellows do not exist for our 
sakes, but that we exist for their sakes. That 
is a revolution not yet completed. The con- 

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verts at Ephesus learned that if they did know 
something that others did not know, they had 
been taught it for the sake of those others. 
David Harum was right in saying that it is a 
principle of much present life to find out what 
the other fellow means to do to you and to 
do it to him first. The change wrought by 
the teaching of Jesus is that we become serv- 
ants of the need of others. We have no 
powers that we may treasure and use for our 
own benefit, exploiting others. In the case of 
Service vs. Self-seeking, Jesus appears for the 
plaintiff, 
such It is such changes as these that the gospel 

necessary. of Christ accomplishes in the large way. They 
are changes which it seeks to accomplish in 
personal life. A growing church will be one 
whose members are thus changed. They will 
be turned from dishonest practices, from 
frauds however piously perpetrated, from 
practices which bring the cause of religion into 
disrepute. If Christ cannot change the lives 
of His followers, if He cannot give them new 
and better principles of living, then His church 
cannot hope to grow. A little while ago I 
heard Dr. Chapman tell of a visit to St. Mark's 

78 



Zbc Gbanae& Xfves of tbe Converts 

in Venice, where he noticed the alabaster 
pillars beside the great altar. They were dull 
and lifeless — strange they should be there. 
The guide took a lighted taper and held it 
before one of the pillars. Then its beauty ap- 
peared, color radiated from it and filled a 
great circle with light. All that happened was 
that light had fallen on its dullness and it had 
answered with light. No less thing than that 
is planned by Jesus Christ for His followers. 
No less thing, a vastly greater thing. The 
change He works is not upon them, but within 
them. He would make the King's daughters Psaim 45-13. 
and sons all glorious within. He would not 
shine on us as the taper ray falls on alabaster; 
He would be a blaze of glory in our lives that 
shall transform them throughout. Some one 
tells of a countryman going into the capital at 
Albany and hearing it said that certain columns 
were Scotch granite. He tapped them thought- 
fully. "Scotch granite/' he said, "is it polished 
that way clean through?" A Christian ought 
to be changed clean through ; in the secret life, 
in the open life, in the whole life. 

It is common to find the name of Jesus Christ's 
linked with those of great reformers as though changing 



men. 



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He were one among them. Emerson names 
Him so sometimes. But He claims and has 
gained a higher place. He does not lead men 
from without. He makes them new from 
within. This He seeks to do with all the people 
who profess His name. He would make a 
strong church out of them by using their 
changed lives. There is an old legend that an 
innocent life must be walled up in the founda- 
tion of any building that is meant to endure. 
Professor Paulsen thinks the innocent life of 
Christ in the very foundation of the church is 
its hope for permanence. Well, it is the lives 
of its members changed toward holiness that 
are the mark of its growth to-day. Let the 
preaching be eloquence and earnestness itself,, 
let the church be separated from the world, 
let the hypocrites all be disclosed, if there be 
not constantly more men and women coming 
into it, changed by the power of God, then 
the church cannot grow. If men come into 
the church, and are not changed from what they 
would be without the power of Christ, then 
the church cannot prove its right to be. The 
changes are not reserved for the ministry or 
for peculiarly constituted people. There is 



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Zbc Cbange& %ivcs of tbe Converts 



no -unworthy habit to which a man must yield. 
There is no sin which is so inwrought into 
his fibre that it cannot be taken out. There 
is no man who cannot become godly, utterly 
made over from the old life into the new. 

Moreover, we are not yet the power in the The contra- 
growing church which we may be until we are the un- 
so changed. A dishonest Christian, a Chris- life. 
tian impure or rough in speech, a frivolous, 
unreliable Christian, a selfish Christian, a hard- 
handed Christian — read the phrases and see 
how they jar on the ear. The adjective and the 
noun will not connect. In so far as the adjec- 
tive fits us, so far we do not fit the noun. 
But the change of our lives is not simply in 
such details. The whole life gets transformed. 
It was the right spirit that made a man speak 
of himself as one whose business was the serv- 
ing of the Kingdom of God, and who sold 
groceries to pay the bills. That is the changed 
attitude toward life. It makes it honorable 
to make money, for thus the purpose of God 
is served and His Kingdom advanced. It 
makes it noble to teach, to work, to think, to do 
anything, because everything can be fitted into 
the place of service. 

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The four 
rules of life. 



Gen. 4:9. 
Matt. 27:4. 



Matt. 26:14. 



Luke 6:31. 



Luke 22:27. 



There are but four great rules of life, found 
everywhere and marking grades of men. There 
is, first, the Wooden Rule — the rule of Cain: 
"Am I my brother's keeper ?" — the rule of the 
priests: "What is that to us? See thou to 
that;" — the rule of indifference to others, 
under which life centers on self, and self cares 
no more for others than the floor cares for the 
agony of the man who has fallen on it. There 
is, secondly, the Brazen Eule — the rule of 
Judas: "What will you give me, and I will 
betray Him unto you," — the rule under which 
others are exploited for self's sake, which re- 
gards others only so far as they may serve self. 
Then, immeasurably above them, is, thirdly, 
the Golden Rule: "As ye would that men 
should do to you, do ye also to them likewise," 
— a rule given by the Master Himself, not as a 
final rule for life, more than many others He 
gave, and not the rule of His own life, a rule 
wherein the self and its desires are still the 
standard, but so far beyond the common law 
of life that the world will be a glad place when 
we all obey it. Finally there is the Diamond 
Rule, — the rule of the life of Christ: "I am 
among you as He that serveth," — the rule of 



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Ube Gbangefc Xives ot tbe Converts 

service, under which the self is no longer stand- 
ard, under which others are thought of as the 
field for the outlay of strength, under which 
the soul looks up to God to find His will and 
delights to do it. We are here not to be minis- 
tered unto but to minister. The gospel of 
Christ would change our lives from the lowest 
to the highest rule, would bring us out of wood 
and brass and even gold and set us in the 
treasury of God as very diamonds. Every life 
so changed provides strength for the growing 
church. Tertullian explains the peculiar 
spread of the Christian faith in his day by 
saying of the Christians: "They alone live 
blameless lives." Such lives will make the 
church irresistible in our own day. 

Is it not the change into the likeness of The result 
Christ that we mean? You remember Queen changed life. 
Bellicent's account of the crowning of Arthur, 
how the knights of the Eound Table knelt 
before him and were bound by such strait vows 
to himself that they rose, some pale, some 
flushed, some dazed as though they had seen a 
ghost, but when Arthur spoke to them in large, 
divine and comfortable words, how she beheld 



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"From eye to eye through all their Order flash 
A momentary likeness of the King." 

But it was not momentary. It became fixed 
in the faces of all those who were worthy their 
place at the Bound Table. When Knight 
Percivale went in quest of the Holy Grail and 
came upon the monk Ambrosius who had 
never known the world, nor strayed without 
the pale of the great yew tree beside his home, 
the monk knew him, saying: 

" But thee 
When first thou earnest — such a courtesy 
Spake through the limbs and in the voice — 

I knew 
For one of those who eat in Arthur's hall: 
For good ye are and bad, and like to coins, 
Some true, some light, but every one of you 
Stamped with the image of the King." 

All the followers of our Christ have momentary 
likeness to Him, let us believe it of ourselves, 
but sometimes it seems to fade away. Shall 
we not lay ourselves open to Him to be stamped 
with His image, changed by fellowship with 
Him from our former selves, that we may carry 
Epn.5:i. His likeness in a new self? So we shall be 
imitators of God, as dear children. 

84 



Some Ibfnts of /iBetbofc 



VII. SOME HINTS OF METHOD. 

CEETAIN incidental expressions in the ac- 
count of the Ephesian Church come il- 
luminatingly to our minds, throwing light on 
the method of the successful work. 

I. 

The content of the preaching by w T hich the The method 
church grew has already been noted. It is in- preaching, 
teresting to note the method of it. Paul re- 
minded the elders that he had preached pub- Acts20:20-25. 
licly and from house to house. He says he 
went about among them all preaching the 
Kingdom. That means a great deal. The pub- 
lic part of the preaching is familiar and quite 
common, until you join with it the phrase : went 
about among you all. There is more in it than 
personal work, about which something needs 
be said. There is the going with the message 
into public places where people were. There 
are men who come to hear the gospel. There 
are other men who hear the gospel only when it 
comes to them. 

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Preaching 
in public 
places. 



Three ob- 
jections. 



In recent years there has been a revival of 
the public preaching by going to men. In the 
great cities, almost any summer night, you will 
find pastors, with groups of people from their 
churches, preaching on street corners or in 
parks. The services are different from those 
of the Salvation Army in that they are frankly 
held in the name of the church, and bring 
assurance to men on the street that the 
churches are concerned about them. They ac- 
cent the fact that the churches do not exist for 
the sake of their members, but for the sake 
of those who are outside. 

Some do not like the method. They fear it 
is imperiling the dignity and value of the gos- 
pel. One of my friends said to me : "The Lord 
save me from a bass-drum religion !" Well, the 
Lord save me from that and also from a band- 
box religion. There is a religion somewhere 
between the bass-drum and the band-box which 
will be about right. It is a religion which makes 
us welcome all those who come to the gospel 
message, but sends us out with the gospel 
message to those who will not come. 

Some of the brethren object to street-corner 
preaching, because they feel they are not 



86 



Some IMnts of flfcetbofc 



adapted to it. They shrink from it. What do 
they ordinarily say to a man who shrinks from 
uniting with the church because he dreads the 
publicity, the standing before people? What 
do they say to the man who does not feel 
adapted to teaching a Sunday School class, or 
doing any distinctive work for Christ ? Doubt- 
less in some cases they find the reasons good. 
In most cases, I am sure, they point out that 
if it is needed work, grace will be given for 
it, and that with the attempt at service will 
come fitness and pleasure. My friend, Dr. Mer- 
rill, of the Sixth Presbyterian Church, Chicago, 
and a group of young people from that church 
and my own, will remember the evening a few 
years ago when we sat singing and waiting the 
signal for going out for our first street meet- 
ing. Dr. Merrill was to speak, and I was fairly 
ashamed of being so glad that I was not to 
speak. We owned up, he did and I did verbally, 
and the young people did in their faces, that 
we were not quite sure how we would come out. 
But after that first meeting I think we were 
all done with that feeling. A great crowd, at- 
tentive, respectful, even sympathetic, always 
greeted us, and we learned to love the service. 

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That is a common testimony. But suppose it 
were not? May it not be a duty still? Sup- 
pose in one summer campaign a man only 
learned to say the simple gospel in a way to 
hold a street company, that would be worth 
the work. His winter preaching would be 
better for it. 

Some object to street meetings that they do 
not bring results. What results ? Conversions ? 
But they do bring such results in many cases. 
One reason we do not know more of such re- 
sults is that we do not follow them up. We 
hold our meeting and go home with no per- 
sonal endeavor, and no clinching the matter 
with men. But there are results which repay 
the work without conversions. It is a great 
thing to remind a church that the gospel is 
portable and is meant to be taken to people. 
The inner effect of outdoor meetings is tre- 
mendous. And it is a good thing to remind the 
outside man that the churches are after him, 
not simply glad to have him come. Often he 
pretends to think the churches are exclusive, 
and that he would have no welcome if he came 
to them. Such meetings must make him realize 
that the churches are more than waiting for 

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Some Dints of /n>etbo& 



him; they are seeking him. All this, even if he 
does not accept Christ, nor even come to 
church. In many cases he will do both. And 
after all, are we right sure that "results" are 
the main thing ? 

House to house preaching corresponded in House to 

x ° x house work. 

part, at least, to our personal work. Dr. Trum- 
bulPs little book on Individual Work for Indi- 
viduals has said most that need be said on that 
subject for those who have read it. It meets 
all the common objections of lack of time and 
adaptation and success and propriety and 
brings the matter squarely down to each man. 
I asked a young man once to read the book. He 
declined, saying: "I understand it makes every- 
one feel that he can and ought to do personal 
work, and I do not want to do it." He is not 
the only one whose "cannot" means "will not." 
For many church members the present mean- 
ing of "from house to house" is "from store 
to store," "from customer to customer," "from 
friend to friend." It means a portable religion 
which is aggressive beyond the public domain. 

The pastor's part of this personal work is Pastoral 
much more difficult than most laymen suppose. 
So-called "pastoral calling" has much degener- 

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Ube ©rowing Cburcb 



ated in our day. One of my brethren calls it 
"gadding." Every pastor knows how easy it is 
to leave a house after a call, feeling that no 
spiritual impression has been left; one has 
made a social call, that is the whole of it. But, 
of course, that is not pastoral calling. The 
story is told of a Brooklyn pastor that when he 
went to his present church he announced his 
purpose with reference to pastoral calling. He 
said: "My idea of a pastoral call is that the 
pastor shall take an elder with him to a home, 
and there assemble all the family, the father 
remaining at home, of course, interrogate them 
on their spiritual condition, counsel them as to 
their conduct and lead them in worship. If 
now, any of you desire such a call, kindly let 
me know, and I will come." He has not been 
called upon to go. Of course, that is extreme. 
On the other hand, another brother is much 
elated with the fact that he can make twenty 
or twenty-five calls in a half day. I doubt if 
Paul's house to house work was done in either 
fashion. It was rather the carrying of the gos- 
pel into homes, it was the bringing of a spir- 
itual influence into the houses. A minister is 
in poor business when he becomes a mere social 

90 



Some f)fnts of /iDetbofc 



visitor. He may read the Bible and pray in a 
house or he may not, but he must speak and 
live and visit in that home for the sake of the 
spiritual life or he has not made a pastoral call. 
It may be a call to make acquaintance, but the 
acquaintance is sought frankly for the sake of 
the man's soul. After a discussion with a fel- 
low-minister on the respective values of pulpit 
and parish work, I met a well-known elder on 
the street and asked him whether he would 
prefer a pastor who was a good preacher at the 
cost of the parish calling, or one who called 
generously even at the cost of his preaching. 
He said, "Neither; I want my pastor to be a 
constant spiritual influence in my life. I want 
to feel when I have touched him that power 
has come to me, and I have been charged anew 
to meet the materializing influences under 
which I live all the week." "A constant spir- 
itual influence," that is the value of pastoral 
calling. 

And there ought to be a vast amount more 
of it for the sake of explicit soul-winning. In 
a conference, a few months ago, a pastor con- 
fessed that his weeks often passed with no sucH 
hand-to-hand effort. He wanted men saved 



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"Learning 
how by do- 
ing the work. 



John 1:41, 45. 



Luke 2:38. 



and preached for it, but he did not go out to 
grapple with men one by one in hope of win- 
ning them to Christ. Many of us might make 
a similar confession. We are interested in sin- 
ners, but not in a sinner. Partly it is because 
we already have so much to do, and we do not 
realize how the personal work would inspire 
the mass work. Partly we do not know to 
whom to speak, and we neglect the ones nearest 
to us. Partly we do not feel adapted to it, 
and we fail to learn how from doing the work. 
Whatever hinders our doing house-to-house 
Boul-winning, we are denying the church one of 
its best means of growth. 

Here again, be sure that the house-to-house 
work was not left to Paul. Surprising how the 
first knowledge of Jesus led men to tell each 
other. I asked a man once to go and speak 
bo another in behalf of Christ. "Oh, I can't," 
he said, "I have just become a Christian my- 
self." But it was on the very day after he 
found Jesus for himself that Andrew found 
Simon for Jesus and Philip found Nathaniel. 
As soon as Anna heard that the Savior had 
come, she went about to tell all whom she 
knew. If personal work meant philosophical 



92 



Some Dints of ZlDetbofc 



argument or logical discussion, it might call 
for a course of study before it is undertaken. 
No one can be too well trained, be clear on 
that. Courses in personal work are admirable. 
Only, let it be very clear that the best course 
in personal work is personal work. A young 
Christian will learn more about how to ap- 
proach men in behalf of Christ by approaching 
a few ignorantly than from a course of lectures. 
But he is afraid he "will make mistakes." 
Likely he will. But he will do no eternal 
damage if his heart is right. Trust the leading 
and overruling of the Master for that. 

One of our secular papers, one of the cheap- 
est of them, recently contained an excellent 
editorial on the element of personal work in 
church growth. It was good, because it was 
based on incidents in the life and work of 
Jesus. It reminded us how He went after men 
in their places of abode, going from town to 
town. The closing paragraph said: "And so, 
while the churches are barely holding their 
own, what body of Christians is leaping for- 
ward, commanding the attention of all men? 
The Salvation Army. Say what you will of 
its method, it has at least this merit — it goes 

93 



Zbc (Browtng Cburcb 



after the man, instead of waiting for the man 
to come." Let us not contend about the 
churches barely holding their own, but let 
us agree with this, that the church of to-day 
needs to go about among men with the gospel 
both publicly and from house to house, to gain 
full growth. 



II. 



The problem There is an almost pathetic touch in the ac- 

of leader- r 

skip. count of the struggle of the Ephesian church 

to secure better workers and its brave use of 
such as it had. Of course, it wanted Paul. 

Acts 18:30. He founded the church and though the peo- 
ple sought him to stay, he soon felt that he 

Acts 19:10. must go on. Later he spent two years with 

Acts 20:17. them. On his final journey to Jerusalem, he 
avoided coming purposely. Meanwhile they 

Acts 18:24-28. had Aquila and Priscilla and the brilliant 
Apollos. As for the latter, he came to them 
poorly trained, only half informed of the truth 
of the gospel, with the merit of readiness to 
learn. But every one knows the peril of half 
truths in the mouth of a popular leader. 
Everyone knows the damage to a church under 

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Some ftfnts of flDetbofc 



the teaching of a man who does not know the 
greatest verities. Many a church explains its 
poor work by the poor leader it has. The pas- 
tor is not a spiritual man, or he is not a popu- 
lar man, or he is sensational, or he is dry — 
this or that, he is not the leader the church 
wants. Half -trained leaders disgust other men. 
Ungrammatical Moodys are bid to sit down in 
meetings. Young people are told not to air 
their notions in public. They are assured that 
more harm than good comes from half-baked 
opinions. There is good history to sustain the 
fear. Heresies are one-sided truths. Fail of 
the vision of the full-orbed truth and you have 
a fad or a new sect. God save us from more! 
The growing church to-day has the same 
problem of leadership that confronted the 
Ephesian church. There are a few Pauls — 
men whom everybody wants, men in demand. 
If each church could have one, it would be 
much better off and the kingdom would hasten. 
There are occasional Aquilas and Priscillas, 
God be thanked, never conspicuous, but 
thoroughly reliable, informed, patient with the 
half-trained and able to sustain a steady pace 
of work. But are there not more of the Apol- 

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TTbe ©rowing Cburcb 



los type, possibly without his eloquence, but 
with his half -vision ? It is much if they have 
his zeal, much if they magnify the half-truth 
which they know. Still, Carlyle was right in 
saying, "To teach religion, the first thing need- 
ful and also the last and only thing, is to find 
a man who has religion." You will never draw 
water out of an empty well. You will never 
learn from a man's teaching what the man does 
not know. Half-vision is always half-blind- 
ness. The half that the modern Apollos does 
not see may not be the same to which 
the Ephesian church was blind. It is generally 
the richer, better part of the truth, be sure of 
that. He may see the need of man, but not 
the hope for them. He may see their sin with- 
out their struggle. He may realize his own 
strength, but not his weakness. He may be 
efficient in the pulpit and a failure outside it. 
He may be a pastor par excellence, but a stick 
of a preached. He may be a good man, he may 
without any sense. Or, worst of all, he may 
be carried away with eloquence, or society, or 
intellectuality, and cold to the Spirit of God. 
Well, suppose a church has such a leader. 
The first thought of some is to get rid of him. 

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Some Dints of /B>etbo& 



They think he might fit somewhere else, and 
they would like to pass him on. Or suppose 
such a leader, half educated, half trained, ap- 
pears among the young people or anywhere in 
the church. Some would silence him, put him 
down, "teach him his place." It would all be 
done most kindly if possible, but firmly and 
in the interest of the church. That might have 
been done with Apollos. Error plus eloquence 
is very dangerous. Silence Apollos, then. 



Aquila shows us a more excellent way. Why Making a 

new leader 

not save Apollos for the church and make him out of the 

old one. 

efficient? If he is a young fellow, leading 
awkwardly and bunglingly, but earnest and 
eager, the church needs him sorely, not half- 
baked, but gradually and carefully trained. If 
he is a half-blind pastor, he also is needed. 
The popular notion is that a minister comes 
to a church already trained. It is a large mis- 
take. The prophetic word is commonly Hosea4:9. 
quoted : "Like priest, like people," when the 
prophet said, "Like people, like priest." The 
influence of a minister on a church is unmis- 
takable, but the church makes the minister 
in even larger sense. I heard one minister 
say: "Let me know a church well and I will 

g 97 



Zbc ©rowing Cburcb 



tell you what kind of pastors it has had." An- 
other replied, "Let me know a minister well, 
and I will tell you what kind of churches he 
has had." I could not tell either, but the 
latter said as large a thing as the former. I 
wish it were wise to give the name of a much 
loved and well known pastor whose long ser- 
vice in his present church began with failure 
and distrust. The wisest of his people came 
together after the first year, and faced their 
mistake in calling him. Manifestly he was not 
the man for the place, for their church was 
"peculiar," as all churches are; the only thing 
now was to secure a call for him elsewhere as 
quietly and gracefully as possible. But some 
one said, "Are we so sure he will fail? Have 
we done our part? Let us rally to him. Let 
us pray for him, let us see his good qualities 
first and most; let us talk him up, but let us 
pray him up." To that they agreed, and 
twenty-five years of happy pastorate have fol- 
lowed. His friends say the change is greatest 
in himself. The judgment of the church was 
correct, but they changed the man. 

I do not forget that there are incorrigibles. 
The wise man found men in his own day who 

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Some trtnts of flDetbob 



would not be separated from their folly, Prov. 27:22. 
though you pounded them in a mortar with 
a pestle. There may be such men now. All 
men are not so. There are men failing in 
church leadership to-day because their church 
will not pray them into efficiency. They do 
not do better because they do not know better. 
No one expounds to them the more perfect 
way. That can be badly done, and there are 
men who receive instruction badly, but the 
failure on either side is not common. Most 
men can be trained, and any church can re- 
form any good man. Part of the restlessness 
in the ministry is prayerlessness in the people. 
Wanting better leaders, they think the only 
way is to get another leader, when they might 
make a new man out of the one they have. If, 
therefore, my brother in the pew, you feel that 
your pastor or your superintendent is unquali- 
fied for his place, ask very seriously whether 
you are doing your share to qualify him. In- 
stead of seeking a new leader, might you not 
make a new one. In your own quiet way, be 
Aquila to your Apollos. 



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in. 

The need of Four times in the Eevelation letter, the 

staying qual- ' 

ity. Spirit commends in the Ephesian Church its 

steadiness and persistence. He speaks of its 

Rev. 2:1-7. toil, twice of its steadfastness, recalls that it 
was ready to bear for His sake, and that it 
did not grow weary. Its service was not spas- 
modic. It had a sanctified doggedness that 
saved it from the strain of the splurge and the 
shame of the re-action. Such a quality entered 
largely into its growth. 

A most needed quality. Have you not be- 
come suspicious of plans of work exploited in 
the papers and lauded as accomplishing great 
events? You read on anxiously to see how 
long these elaborate schemes have worked. 
"Inaugurated last February" — ah, you will 
wait to try it. "Already in operation six 
months" — well, six months is not long. In an 
educational meeting in Chicago last winter a 
revolutionary outline of study was presented 
by a western educator, who assured the hearers 
that it was in successful operation in his own 
university. I learned afterwards that when he 



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Some Dints ot /iDetbofc 



had spoken, certain difficulties in the long 
working of the plan were at once pointed out. 
He assured the critics that they had encoun- 
tered none of them. "How long has the plan 
been in use?" was asked. "About three 
months," was the reply, and everybody laughed 
outright. The difficulties were not due yet. 
An old pastor said to me once that he never 
feet like telling anyone else about a plan of 
work until he had tried it at least three years. 
All brethren do not feel so. Some are eager 
even to announce what they still intend to do. 

Then there are men who wear out in about Men who 
four years. They are good for a short run, 
which they make at good speed, going to pieces 
at the end of it. They are not good for the 
long pull. A farmer uncle met my youthful 
commendation of a frisky, enthusiastic horse 
by bidding me wait until the end of the ten- 
mile journey. I noted that the other horse did 
the principal pulling the latter half of the way. 
It is a rare horse that can pull frolicsomely 
for ten miles. Less frolic and more pull at 
the beginning is safe. This same uncle once 
said of a certain preacher that his "barrel" 
was just two years deep, and after that you 



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struck water. Some readers are learning to 
distrust items to the effect that the congrega- 
tions have doubled in six months and the 
prayer meetings are the largest ever had, and 
so on and so on. They rejoice in six months 
of good, of course, but they ask about the stay- 
ing power of the good. Is it a steady light or 
a flash ? 
The failure So are there churches and church methods 

churches. 

that wear out. Given a new pastor and they 
seek to kill him with kindness. They love him 
to death — but he had better die early. Or there 
comes a great and gracious outpouring of the 
Spirit. A whole community is roused and 
numbers are brought to Christ and into the 
church. After the meetings close, the people let 
go, interest dies down and wiseacres shake their 
heads and say, "We never did believe in these 
spasmodic revivals anyway!" A great gift of 
God, meant to enrich the church, is allowed to 
slip through its fingers for sheer lack of stead- 
fastness and readiness to endure the grind of 
toil. After the meetings is the time for patient 
work, for training, for harvesting of results, 
for assimilating the new life to the church. At 
that point lies one weakness of many 

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Some Ibfnts of /iDetbofc 



a church. It can meet an emergency; it is 
not ready to settle down to the grind. It 
wants large results but it will not be long-suf- 
fering in gaining them nor in using them. 
Adam Bede liked "to read about Moses 
because he carried a hard business well 
through." Thomas Paine published his paper, 
"The Crisis," during the early years of Ameri- 
can life, hoping to help his fellow citizens to 
meet the nation's peril. When the treaty be- 
tween England and the United States was an- 
nounced, he ceased the issuing of the paper, 
saying, "The times that tried men's souls are 
over." But it is at just that point in the his- 
tory that John Fiske dates the beginning of 
the "Critical Period in the History of the 
United States." The announcement of the 
treaty was the beginning of the real crisis, not 
the ending of it Many churches begin their 
rest when the time for work has just come. It 
is not the spasmodic heroic efforts that meas- 
ure churches best, but their power to get their 
shoulders under the commonplace burden and 
walk on and on with it. The real strength of a 
church is seldom anything that people think 
it worth while to tell about. It may be strong 

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in organization and in sociability and in equip- 
ment. Back of all that must be patience, 
steadfastness, readiness to bear without grow- 
ing weary. It has been said many times that 
Jesus showed His true self most of all in set- 
tling down cheerily to a hopeless task. You 
know what is meant by it. The church of 
Christ has no hopeless task, yet its great task 
is not to be accomplished with a splurge or a 
spasm. Its load will not be pulled up the 
heights by jerks and plunges. Novel methods 
and new appliances, fresh schemes and attrac- 
tive plans have their place, but over and above 
all must be that patient steadfastness which 
comes of faith in Him who endured the cross 
not in one supreme hour alone, but through 
His whole sacrificial life. 

These lines are written in a log cabin in the 
pine woods. The outlook is on a beautiful lake, 
fringed with birch and pines. The wind is 
blowing and the alder bushes and white birch 
trees are dancing and fluttering, making a con- 
stant rustle. The water is roughened and 
darkened in the breeze. But the great Nor- 
way pines that have overlooked the lake these 
two hundred years hardly sway in the wind, 

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Some Ibfnts of ZlDetboD 



and send down no light sound, but only a deep 
undertone of music which seems to have in it 
the strength and majesty of their patient 
watching over these little things of yesterday. 
At their feet many men, many shrubs have 
claimed notice, have boasted their might, have 
lived their lives and passed away. The pines 
reach on up toward the heavens and strike 
roots deeper, decade after decade, until they 
stand double and treble centenarians, doing the 
will of God. And we, lying at their feet, look 
up through their evergreen tops and seek to 
learn their lesson while we pray our God, whose 
sentinels they are, to make us and our people 
steadfast, patient, toilsome, ready to bear, 
never weary until we come home to the corona- 
tion of the faithful. 



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VIII. THE PEEILS AND SAFEGUARDS. 

PERIL is part of the reason of the church. 
It is placed in the world exactly because 
of the things that endanger it. And yet the 
gravest perils of the church are not necessary 
to it, not the explanation of its being. In his 

A.cts 30:29, 30. farewell to the elders of the Ephesian church, 
Paul warns them of two lines of attack. There 
will be grievous wolves seeking to tear the 
flock — danger from without; there will be 
traitorous, unsubmissive, perverse ones rising 
among themselves — danger from within. Later 

Rev. 2:4. in its history, the Spirit rebukes the church for 
loss of its early zeal. It has left its early pas- 
sion of love. The humdrum of faith has set- 
tled upon it. From these there issues the 

Rev. 2:5. greatest of all perils, divine retribution, the 
withdrawal of light-giving power, withdrawal 
of privilege by act of God Himself. Four lines 
of peril there are: attacks from without, at- 
tacks from within, loss of zeal, divine retribu- 
tion. Their seriousness deepens from the first 
to the fourth. 

106 



Ube perils an& Sateauar&s 



The least thing the church has to dread is Attacks 
the attacks upon it by its enemies. It was out. 
from Dr. John Hall that I first heard the old 
story of the serpent that vented its rage upon 
a file by gnawing it with its teeth, rejoicing 
at the little heap of chips which it noticed after 
each attack, until it saw blood among them 
and found it was its own blood, the chips the 
filings of its own teeth. The file was unhurt. 
In logic, in philosophy, in intellectual combat, 
the wise men of the church may be safely 
pitted against the opponents. It is not the 
romancing of a lover that makes us declare 
that the intellect of Christendom is with the 
church — not all of it, but an undue propor- 
tion. Attacks that have taken the form of vio- 
lence have brought the church new life. The 
blood of the martyrs has been the seed of the 
church. 

All that is true of the church at large and as Their in- 
a whole. But such attacks often work havoc viduais. 
with individual church-men. No storm ever 
wrecks a forest, but almost any storm will lay 

107 



Ube ©rowing Cburcb 



low a few trees in the forest, weaker, feebler, 
susceptible trees. The outer foes of the church 
may not, therefore, be passed without notice by 
any growing church. The saloon, the brothel, 
the wrong commercial system, the false theory 
of the universe, the atheistic scientific system, 
the specious ethical philosophy — the enemies 
vary so that it seems almost unfair to list them 
together. But all are outside enemies which 
endanger the church. Give any one of them 
full swing, and the church suffers. They are 
like grievous wolves that enter in, and they do 
not spare the flock. Amazing how many of 
our churches sit idle in presence of these 
threatening dangers. We fulminate against 
errors in doctrines of which many of our peo- 
ple have never heard, while we are either silent 
or fanatically impractical regarding the life- 
and-death struggle in which some of them are 
Danger to engaged. Last winter some one sent me 
peopfe. anonymously a circular showing how large a 

percentage of the inmates of certain peniten- 
tiaries claimed to have attended Sunday 
Schools in their childhood. The conclusion 
was drawn that the Christian religion tends 
to make criminals. Bather, such facts indi- 

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Ube perils an& Safesuar&s 

cate that we have not "watched." As some one 
puts it, "we have not held our own," those who 
came to our hand. There came wolves upon 
them and bore them away while we stood by. 
Not many pastors who have not seen young 
men borne away by enemies of their souls, 
and condemned themselves that they did not 
see it in time. In a paper which came to me yes- 
terday I note that one of my friends urges 
that the attempt to "revive revival methods" 
has failed and that the real growth of the 
church will come from care of our children, 
bringing them into the covenant and training 
them into the Christian life, so that they be- 
come church-members in natural order. One 
need not so coolly dismiss the effort to win 
present adults in order to stand with the writer 
in his plea for care of the children. Many 
Christian parents, engrossed with other con- 
cerns or strangely timid about their spiritual 
interests, seem to stand aside while the wolves 
tear away their children, grieving greatly after- 
ward. Our cities cry out with such error. We 
explain it by the many seductions and tempta- 
tions of the city. That is only half. When I 
said once that I supposed the floating of dis- 

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ease germs in the air explained the prevalence 
of sickness, a wise physician told me I had left 
out half the reason — the unfit condition, the 
carelessness, the precedent weakness of those to 
whom the germs came. The temptations, the 
seductions of the city are terrible enough, God 
knows, but the blame for the failure of a life 
may not always be shifted to them. There 
was shameful carelessness, there was temporiz- 
ing with evil, there was compromising with low 
morals in the homes, and there was a relaxing 
of zeal and vigilance of the church at just the 
critical period. It is easy to sit here half a 
thousand miles from the great city and write 
coolly of such matters, easy to adjust the bur- 
den of blame. It is quite another thing to 
understand the failure of children of godly 
parents. Yet all that has been said is true. 
The blame does lie in larger and lesser degree 
upon the Christian church and the Christian 
family for not holding for Christ what has 
once been given it for Him. The warning 
word of Paul comes to us still: "therefore 
watch." 



110 



Ube perils an& Safeguar&s 



ii. 

More perilous than attacks from without are Attacks ( 

x from within, 

the disloyalties and self-assertions from within. 
The Ephesian elders were warned lhat per- 
verse speaking men should arise from among 
themselves. The church has always suffered 
from that peril. I heard a young scientific 
man say once that to "a truly scientific mind" 
(his own, of course, being included), it was 
enough to excite suspicion regarding any opin- 
ion that it was commonly held. There are 
people who seem to act on that principle in 
religion. They love to read or to follow any 
new proposal. In our own day it must be 
occult. It must be phrased so that you catch 
only a glimmer of an idea at first reading. 
It must involve a little, at least, of the con- 
tradictory, must depreciate somewhat your com- 
mon sense. Thus it flatters the vanity of the 
follower, revealing others fools who cannot 
understand it. It is amusing to observe the 
sweet resignation with which one particular 
company of faddists to-day dismiss all sturdy 
objections with the saying that of course you 

111 



Ube ©rowing Cburcb 



cannot understand their beliefs, since they are 
spiritually discerned! They understand them, 
to be sure, but as for you — ! But that is only 
type of all. Most of these faddists come out of 
the church. They add no strength to it. They 
do not go into the ranks to make another sec- 
tion of the one force of the Kingdom of God. 
They become antagonists. Moreover they are 
arrant propagandists, rejoicing more over an 
addition from the church than from the out- 
side world. The church has thus been the 
breeding place not only of its mightiest de- 
fenders, but also of its mightiest opponents. 
That is tribute to its breadth and freedom, but 
it involves peril. 
Dealing with Against these destructive influences a wise 
fadf. 10US watchfulness must be exercised that disciples 
be not drawn away after them. If the church 
prospers by violent attacks, so will such per- 
verse opinions. Their leaders often desire 
nothing more than the opportunity to be 
martyrs for the cause of truth. Some such at- 
tacks seem to lose sight of the element of 
truth in the new notion. Some disregard the 
manifest honesty of many of its adherents. For 
one reason and another they accomplish little. 

112 



XCbe perils an& Safe^uatfts 

A returning wanderer told a gentleman that 
he was brought back by the word of a friend 
which showed how all the fibre of the new 
teaching was taken from the old and what 
was really new in it was not worth while. Add 
to it this, that the old faith of the church con- 
tains great and important truths which the 
new omits, and the line of argument most effici- 
ently used seems before us. 

The unsettling of faddists is not so perilous The doubts 

x of scholar- 

with some as the doubts and denials issuing ship, 
from scholarship. Dr. Van Dyke hits it off 
in his usual quotable way : "The coat of arms 
of the present age is an interrogation point 
rampant, above three bishops dormant, and its 
motto is Query?" A father told me recently 
that he would not send his son to college be- 
cause he would certainly get him back with 
his religious ardor chilled if he had any faith 
left at all. A young man came to me once to 
talk about his life work, saying that he had 
purposed to preach, but his course in philos- 
ophy had so unsettled him that he had nothing 
to preach. In a Christian university a pupil 
of my own pursued a post-graduate course in 
studies which touched easily on religious sub- 

h 113 



XLbc ©rowing Cburcb 



jects. He told me he had not once heard a 
sympathetic reference to the religion of Christ 
nor the church, but had heard many caustic 
and sarcastic allusions to the church and its 
old follies. I spent a day, two or three years 
ago, in the classrooms of a theological semi- 
nary, attending four lectures by as many pro- 
fessors. In each one the class was made to 
smile or laugh at the ideas of their fathers re- 
garding one or more religious matters, each 
reference being made in such superiority 
that the contempt of the speaker shone in it. 
-The head of one of our Christian colleges 
praised his principal science man very highly 
In my hearing, adding that he regretted he 
was not a Christian, but hoped he was not in- 
oculating the students with his scepticism. 
Another explained that it was very reluctantly 
that he chose for his professor of philosophy a 
man who denied the deity of Christ and the 
atonement, adding that he supposed such 
doubts would not appear in his teaching. 
Meanwhile a bright young fellow in school told 
his mother he heard his Sunday teaching 
laughed at five days a week, and the laugh was 
getting the better of the teaching. 

114 



XTbe Perils atto SafeauarOs 

That is one side of the educational situation. The other 

side. 

Many of us know and believe in another side. 
A favorite college speaker declares that for the 
average boy the college is a safer place to-day 
than his own home. Of course, that depends 
on the boy and the college and the home. But 
it looks toward this better side. We know the 
godly, scholarly instructors in science and 
philosophy. We know the splendid array of 
leading men in any college on the side of Christ 
and the church. We know the deepened, en- 
riched Christian character which many young 
fellows get in college, and which all could get. 
There are colleges whose first requirement 
for any instructor is that he be taught of the 
Lord. He is a poor instructor who teaches 
theology in a Latin or a mathematics class- 
room, but he is quite as poor who does not 
maintain a Christian attitude in his class- 
room in any branch. Most pastors can point 
to young men who have come back from col- 
lege eager for church work and intelligent 
about it, Bible-taught, personal workers for 
souls. Some of us who have been on the in- 
side are clear that much of the unsettling in 



115 



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The safe- 
guard. 



Loss of faith 
in the pulpit. 



the faith of students does not begin in the 
classroom, but in entirely outside conditions. 

But let both phases of the matter be true. 
The peril to the church is manifest. Most of 
the men who in the name of scholarship un- 
settle the faith of other men have come from 
within itself. Over them and their influence 
it must keep watch. It dare not narrow itself 
intellectually, that of course. It dare not seek 
to limit investigation. Equally it dare not 
give over its future to men who sneer at the 
essentials of its life. In so far as it must com- 
mit its youth to the scepticism of scholarship, 
it must throw around them the safeguards of 
faith. 

Still greater is the peril from doubt and un- 
rest when it appears in the pulpit. The airing 
of doubt, the eagerness to show that the faith 
of the church is erroneous when the speaker 
has gone only so far as that, the pulling up of 
anchor in order to drift, all of it is inexcusable. 
Most men pass through a time of fog and mist. 
Certainties get unsettled. It is not honest then 
to call them certainties. There are whole years 
when a minister feels that he dare not preach 
on this or that doctrine. It has lost verity to 



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Ube perils an& SafefluarOs 

him. What then? Denounce it? Explode it 
before his people? Eidicule the fathers for 
holding it? God forbid! Does the man see 
that it is false, will he commit himself to its 
erroneousness, or does he simply not see its 
truth? Some of us thank God most for the 
sermons we thought out, but never preached. 
They were very scholarly, they set the church 
in error, they called to large liberty, and all 
that. We thought we felt almost sad at the 
necessity for preaching them, they would so 
wound the sensitive, conservative, moss-back 
brother. But in the good providence of God 
we did not preach them. We waited to brood 
over them. Somehow they do not seem so 
scholarly as they did. Their central ideas even 
look a little narrow and thin. We might have 
unsettled the faith of some and settled the 
faith of none. If a man has new solid ground 
on which he stands, ground which has the feel 
of the everlasting hills in it, let him shout out 
his call to other men wherever they are. Any 
pulpit is open for that. But if he has lost 
footing, let him be silent until he strikes rock 
again. Certainly one cause of the retarded 
growth of the church in recent years is the 

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intellectual and doctrinal unsettling which the 
blindest can observe. It was a needed and un- 
avoidable condition. The faith of the church 
is not so much changed as it has found new 
affiliation with the whole life of men, has be- 
come richer and fuller. The error lay in the 
peculiar notion of some of us that we must 
trumpet forth our unrest. An old minister 
said strikingly, "I regret no sermon which has 
come out with This is so;' I have regretted a 
good many which have come out with 'Is this 
so V " Luther's word would have sounded very 
different if he had said, "Here I drift; I can do 
The outside no other ." Men outside have not asked for a 

opinion. 

cock-sureness that has forgotten how to ques- 
tion and investigate. They have not asked for 
bondage to a form. Not many have echoed the 
thoughtless cry against creeds. When a man 
said to me, "I believe that no man ought to 
have a creed," I doubt if he saw the contradic- 
tion in his sentence. Probably most men have 
rejoiced in the relaxing of doctrinal stringency, 
wisely or not. But how shall men be drawn to 
a faith which is not sure of itself ? How shall 
men commit themselves to a vessel whose crew 
are all wearing life preservers ? Several earnest 

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TLbc perils atto Safeguard 

men have told me their own clear conviction 
of the essentials of the gospel of Christ, ex- 
pressing their personal faith in Him, who were 
not drawn to the church because of the con- 
fusion that seemed to have arisen among its 
leaders as to their faith. Of course, the great 
thing is gained when a man comes in personal 
faith to Christ, but the church needs such men. 
Thus the attacks upon the church from with- 
in, many of them not meant as attacks, have 
brought it peril and have retarded its growth. 
Thank God that we seem now passing out of 
the stage of unrest. The clouds break away 
from the mountain top and the unshaken 
granite appears. The essentials are showing 
themselves essentials. Battles of heart, which 
were never paraded, are ending in the victory 
of a stronger faith. The note of conviction is 
heard in book and sermon. The church faces 
outward to its work, not inward upon itself. 

III. 

Like the Ephesian Church, the church of to- The loss of 
day is in peril of loss of zeal. The damage is 
greater because the evil must be widespread. 

119 



zeal. 



Ube ©rowing Cburcb 



In every church are members who seem dull 
and dead, but they need not give the tone to 
the church as a whole. If only all were eager 
and zealous, the church would be irresistible. 
It might be uniformed zeal, not according to 
knowledge, yet by it the church would grow as 
it would not by knowledge unfired by zeal. 
Some It would be too long a study to trace in 

loss among detail the causes of loss of zeal. I watched a 

individuals. -, n . ,, . A 

young man cool down m this manner: As a 
clerk he was at both church services, young 
people's meeting, midweek prayer meeting, and 
such other services as properly concerned him, 
efficient in all. As business success came and 
he rose gradually in his office, he dropped out 
of one duty after another, until with his admis- 
sion to partnership he had become an irregular 
attendant upon morning service only. The 
process occupied about five years. Other men 
establish their families, enter a little more into 
society outside the church, and gradually drift 
away from it, ceasing any real labor in its be- 
Matt. 13:22. half. The care of the world, the deceitfulness 
of riches — they still choke the growing soul. 
Young women get caught in social toils, they 
become professionally literary or commercially 

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Zbc perfls an& Safeguards 

important, and the early zeal dies. No matter 
how it happens, the follower of Christ loses 
his first love and the whole church suffers. One 
of the English preachers visiting us two years 
ago called attention to a verse which has trou- 
bled not a few of us before and since. It is johni8:26. 
that one wherein the servant by the fire asked 
the denying Peter, "Did not I see thee with 
Him in the garden?" How could Peter resist 
that ? Ah, as we resist similar queries. Might 
not our enemy sometimes come upon us, say- 
ing, "What! you here? You denying your 
Lord? Did not I see thee with Him a while 
ago ? Are not you the man who spoke so con- 
fidently of your love for Him? Did you not 
stand up before men a while ago and claim Him 
for your Master ?" Our lives have sagged, the 
tension is gone out of them, we have lost our 
zeal. Within six blocks of my own church I 
have found six men who were once Sunday 
School superintendents, who never go to church 
now. 

The cure for individual cases must be indi- 
vidual. It must be brought to the heart of 
these chilled Christians that they do hurt to 
the whole church. The pain of their Lord from 

121 



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First cause 
of loss of 
zeal in the 
church at 
large. 



1 Cor. 15:9. 



their denial must be brought to their own 
hearts in hope that they may go and weep 
bitterly and come again with the passion of 
love. 

Is it not clear, however, that the church has 
had its time of cooled ardor in the large way? 
Occupied with other things, we have lost our 
eagerness to win men to Christ. Some have 
lost their zeal because they have lost their 
sense of the need of men. Young people ex- 
press their entire confidence that God would 
not condemn men anyway. If anything in the 
Bible seems to conflict with that easy notion, 
it is discounted or set down to the discredit of 
the human authors. The old notion of eternal 
banishment from God is too hard for people 
so nice as we are. The tone of preaching has 
changed as well. We are urging our people to 
be good because it is better for the present life. 
We declare that if in this life only we have 
hope, Christians would be of all men most 
happy. One of the religious papers asks 
whether we are not too afraid of preaching im- 
mortality. Would we not be a little ashamed 
of being Christians for the sake of going to 
heaven and escaping hell ? 



122 



Hbe perils an5 Safeguar&s 

Now, perhaps, this life alone ought to mean 
as much to us as this life and the next mean 
together, but to most of us it does not. If we 
have any doubt about the need of Christ for 
the eternal life, even if we leave the next life 
out of account altogether, we lose some of our 
zest for winning men to Him. Do we run for 
the physician to relieve our loved one from an 
hour's pain as hastily as when he is wanted to 
relieve from a lifetime agony ? Undoubtedly we 
are clear that the world needs the gospel of 
Christ to-day if it were to be blotted out of 
existence to-morrow, but we may not blink the 
fact that it would be less apt to care for that 
gospel if to-morrow's event were so assured. A 
return to our conviction of the eternal need 
of men and of the necessity of Christ will 
bring new zeal to many of us. A social gospel 
is very attractive, but society is not apt to be 
saved against the wish of the individuals who 
compose it. Whoever brings one man to fel- 
lowship with Christ helps effectually in the 
social renovation. Mr. Stelzle's recent book on 
the Church and Social Problems tells of a 
church over whose main door is cut the words : 
"I am the Door." But on the closed door 

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Second 
cause of loss 
of zeal in 
the church 
at large. 



Luke 5:5. 






beneath is a tin sign reading, "Go around to 
the other door/'' If we have the thought that 
there are many doors into the kingdom of God, 
we shall not be worried over seeing men wan- 
dering away from Him who is the Door. Eob- 
ert Louis Stevenson writes to one of his friends, 
"There are only three possible attitudes — opti- 
mism, which has gone to smash; pessimism, 
which is on the rising hand, and which is very 
popular with some clergymen who think they 
are Christians; and this Faith, which is the 
Gospel." 

The other large cause of loss of zeal is the 
loss of the spirit of obedience. Eead again the 
account of the calling of Peter, and see how 
he did a thing which he counted useless be- 
cause it was Christ's wish. "At Thy word I 
will let down the net." Some Christians do 
not believe in foreign missions — why? Be- 
cause they do not find it the will of their 
Master? They do not ask it. Some will not 
undertake Christian work, will not seek to be- 
come soul- winners. But what if the Master de- 
sires it? "0, I cannot," they say. Which is 
not the spirit which put the Crusades into his- 



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XEbe perils an& Safeguar5s 

tory with their cry of "God wills it !" Atten- 
tion has been called to the three sayings : 



"With men it is impossible;" 
"With God all things are possible ;" 
"All things are possible to him that be- 
iieveth." 



Have yon laid stress in yoirr reading on the 
second word of the familiar saying of Jesus: John 4:34. 
"My meat is to do the will of Him that sent 
me ?" Generally we think of our obedience as 
the outlaying of our strength. Let us think 
of it instead as the gaining of our strength. 
Until we do His will we shall not have the meat 
of the inner life. With that obedience, dogged 
if it must be, will come power and energy and 
hearty zeal. 

A gentleman hurried to small station in a 
southern state to catch a train. As he came 
near, the train thundered through at express 
speed. "Does that train never stop here?" he 
asked an old negro sitting near. "No, sah, it 
doan nevah stop, sah; it doan even hesitate, 
sah," was the answer. But many a Christian 



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Ube Growing Cburcb 



loses his express speed, even stops in his 
obedience, rating some other will above His 
Lord's will. The whole church seems to fall 
into lethargy and to lose its first love. 
There-as- Shall I not hasten to save the saying from 

surance of J ° 

faith. seeming gloomy or pessimistic? The church 

has never ceased to be the church of Christ, 
has never utterly forgotten His word, has never 
utterly failed Him, and never will. Jacob Eiis 
says that Hans Christian Anderson was much 
afraid of being buried alive, and every night 
for years he pinned to his blanket, before he 
slept, a card, on which was written, "X guess 
I am only in a trance." Let no one mistake the 
lethargy of the church for death, let no one 

1 Kings 18:19. overlook the seventy times seven thousand who 
have not bowed the knee to Baal or any other 
god. During the time when the church seemed 
indifferent there were souls all aflame with zeal. 
When the church seemed dull, men were burn- 
ing out for God, putting to shame all our 
boasted energy. 

Rom. i3:ii. But now it is high time for all of us to 

awake out of sleep. If we have been shorn 
of power by anything that has been in the 
past, our vows have been renewed and power 

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XTbe perils ant> SafeguarDs 

is returning. We are Samsons, newly vowed 
to God, not blinded, not grinding at a mill, but 
free to work marvels for Him. God set us 
afire with zeal! God make us irresistible by 
our vision of the need of man and the will of 
Christ! 



IV. 

So we shall escape the gravest of all perils, — The retribu- 
the retribution of God. Whatever it may mean 
in full to remove the candlestick, it means at Rev. 2:5. 
least this, that light-giving power is gone, that 
power for service is taken away, that the es- 
sential purpose of the light-bearing church is 
defeated. The books tell us that God cannot 
suffer. What they mean may be true, but 
something else is true. It is with bitter pain 
that such retribution will be brought upon any 
church, be sure of that. Last night I read the 
words of retribution : "These shall go away into Matt. 25:46. 
everlasting punishment/' "Shall go away," 
not be driven away, not be arrested and forcibly 
banished from God, "shall go away" by the 
very pressure of their own choice. And He 
that sits upon the throne of judgment has no 

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Ube ©rowing Cburcb 



Eaek. 33:11. pleasure in the death of the wicked. It is His 
everlasting pain that there is everlasting sin. 
But what shall it be if He must remove the 
candlestick of an unrepentant church! I have 
two or three times heard Dr. Henry Bullard 
speak with hushed and almost awed voice of 

Bev.6:i6. the strange Eevelation expression, "The wrath 

of the Lamb." We know the wrath of kings, 
of men, of mighty beasts, — but the lamb is 
hard to stir to wrath. It must be something 
of which we have little conception that He 
who is the sacrificial Lamb may become the 
Judge whose wrath is fearful. Let us not de- 
ceive ourselves with saying that it cannot be. 
The same Book which bears us glad news of 
love, bears news equally of the retribution of 
outraged love. The Jewish nation, once light- 
bearing candlestick of God — does it bear no 
argument? Men, once able to serve, sinning 
until the very heart and life of them is lost — 
are they not argument? The Hebrews writer 
brings us all to pause when he swings his argu- 

Heb. 2:3. ment into personal question: "How shall we 

escape if we neglect ?" There is something to 
gain in life; let us remember there is some- 
thing to escape as well. Any church may lose 

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Zbc perils an& Satefluar&s 

its light-giving power. The peril faced the 
Ephesian Church. It faces the present church. 

There is a touch of deep sadness in the par- 
able of the fig-tree that would not bear and Luke 13:6-9. 
also cumbered the ground. The keeper pleaded 
for one more year, and joined his master in 
pronouncing its doom if it should be still bar- 
ren. Did it bear that critical year ? If it did, 
the master rejoiced with the keeper. If it did 
not, the keeper counted the master wise in cut- 
ting it down. What is sadder than a church 
that is not a force in the kingdom of God, but 
only a hindrance? Is anything more grevious 
than a professed Christian who not only fails 
to bear fruit but is an actual cumberer of the 
ground, actually hinders others and lessens 
their strength ? 

Mr. Steuart makes the doctor in The Samari- 
tans say the deep truth most vividly: "God is 
loving and merciful, long suffering and won- 
drously slow to wrath. Only in the last resort 
will He smite. But make no mistake, He will 
not be mocked. The result of mocking is un- 
speakably terrible." If the deadness and in- 
difference of the Ephesian Church imperilled 
its inmost purpose, so that it might be finally 

1 129 



Ube ©rowing Cburcb 



and irrevocably defeated, is any man able to 
prove that the same conditions may not carry 
with them the same unspeakably terrible peril 
still? 

We need have no fear that the whole church 
of Christ will be defeated. It was the particu- 
lar church and the "angel" of the church that 
were addressed. Is it your church, my brother, 
that is so imperilled ? Is it yourself who stands 
in peril of the retribution of God?' It is not 
the loss of vour immortal soul that is feared. 
It is loss of your power to serve, the defeat of 
your inmost purpose, the removal of the 
candlestick from its place so that you are dead 
and lightless. It is the denial to your church 
of any place or power in the forces of God, 
retribution for its lack of zeal, for its indiffer- 
ence to the will and work of its Master. 

In presence of death all men speak softly. 
Here, also, we are hushed, for here is deepest 
death. A dead church — it is the acme of sad- 
ness. 

Ah, but a live church ! It is the embodiment 
of power. It means reward, not retribution. 
It means victory for inmost purpose, not de- 

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Zbz perils anfc Safeguar&s 

feat. It means trimmed candles in golden 
candlestick, fastened in a secure place by the 
hand of God. This we may make of our 
church. This, by His grace, shall, the whole 
Church of Christ be! 



131 



NOV 13 1903 



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